


Phenomenon

by jeejaschocolate



Series: Jidaigeki: Historical AUs [3]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Bathing/Washing, Cameos and background characters, Dream Sex, Eventual Romance, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Fantasy elements, Femslash, Grimdark in places, Improper use of magical powers, Kissing, Lots of it, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Violence, Yôkai, plot plot and more plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-05-26 10:14:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 37,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6234673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeejaschocolate/pseuds/jeejaschocolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Sengoku Period, 1400s AU) Rukia goes on the road to find a way to save her ailing village. After being attacked by bandits, she gets saved by Orihime, a young girl who lives in the forest and claims she can make friends with yokai...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Crimson

**Author's Note:**

> Back again! With another of these. This time some much-needed femslash with my girls. Once again, much love for these characters and the subject matter. Yokai stuff is near and dear to me, guys. I'll lay that out upfront. And these girls...yeah, I ship it. 
> 
> *Note on yokai: Yokai is the blanket term for supernatural spirits and monsters in Japanese folklore. They have been used to explain any kind of phenomena, from the daily to the extraordinary, ever since ancient times. Other names for yokai are mononoke, ayakashi, mamono, and oni (these are, specifically, demons). There are some specific kinds of yokai which I will explain in the notes as they come up.
> 
> *Note on historical context - The Sengoku Period was part of the larger Muromachi Era of Japanese history. It is known primarily as a turbulent time similar to the Warring States period in Chinese history. Daimyos fought each other constantly for control of land. Farmers took up arms on their own (becoming a kind of pseudo-samurai force) to fight back against a variety of injustices. This resulted in an era of almost constant war. There were also frequent earthquakes and famine. Generally, a rough time to be alive. I can imagine Rukia and Orihime, being the tough chicas that they are, surviving together during this time.
> 
> As such, there are some darker scenes in this fic. But generally it is meant to be a heartwarming story about survival, coming of age, self identity, and romance. 
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> Language notes:  
> mino 蓑 - traditional straw raincoat  
> sugegasa 菅笠 - traditional conical straw hat, tied by string around the neck  
> furisode 振袖 - a distinguished kimono with long, almost body-length sleeves
> 
> TW for some non-con touching here. Very brief.

**Chapter One: Crimson**

Rukia combed through the rough cloth bag one more time. There was about another handful of rice left for her and Renji, which they would have to cook sparingly. To say the least. But they could make it last, as long as they stayed smart.

“Not trying to rush you,” Renji said, a note of annoyed sarcasm in his voice. “But how do you feel about hurrying the fuck up? We’ve got a storm to beat here.”

Rukia sighed, biting her tongue against another snide comment. 

“It’s only rain, Renji,” she replied, flipping her chin-length black hair in annoyance and staring back at her friend with forced resolution. She was the mature one here. She had promised Ukitake she would take care of them… “We’ve been through rain storms before.”

“Uh, yeah…” Renji was staring up at the darkening clouds overheard. The afternoon light mixed with the black cloud cover laid an unsettling pallor over the mountain landscape. “But I don’t much like the idea of being out here when those clouds break. Do you?”

The young woman sighed. She folded her black _shihakusho_ more tightly around herself in reassurance.

“We’ll be fine. We keep moving.”

The red-haired young man sighed. “Yes, boss,” he said darkly. He set his hands on either side of their wheelbarrow—loaded with provisions—and they continued their forward march through the mud-slogged path across the valley.

Rukia and Renji had known each other basically since birth. They were born in the same mountain village, a place called _Aoi yama_ (meaning “blue mountain,” aptly named for the way the snow looked in the early winter mornings as it settled on the mountaintops). _Aoi yama_ was not a wealthy village by far, but they lived comfortably on the hospitality of one neighbor to another. As a result, their village had been around for over two centuries—the mountain was their true home, as far as anyone was concerned.

And when Rukia and Renji’s parents died, in the same avalanche fifteen years ago, the people of _Aoi yama_ had stepped up right away to raise the two orphans. The children lived in the sheds of their neighbors, surviving on handouts and yard work earnings. A decent life. Better than dying, anyway. By far.

One of the loosely hinged wheels on the wheelbarrow dipped into a puddle that was deeper than it looked. Muddy water splashed across Rukia’s shin and she clicked her tongue in annoyance. Cold water. The first bite of a fall steadily turning into winter. In no more than two weeks probably, that water would be frozen over.

Winter came on fast in _Aoi yama._ Such was the climate of the mountain cluster their people called home. Winter was always a dark time, a scary few months when food became harder to come by. The people of _Aoi yama_ feared winter with a kind of ingrained, bone-gripping dread that made each villager grow taciturn as the weather grew colder. Food stores usually ran low by midwinter. Sustaining trade beyond the mountains became impossible with the thick layers of snow blocking any passage. People prayed more often then to the spirits of the mountain, begging for a clean winter with as few deaths as possible. 

Ukitake, the village leader, was responsible for making any necessary sacrifices. Never did they sacrifice anything more than a turtle, though, as their mountain god was said to be a kind one. 

But this year was different. Right in the middle of fall the late season harvest dried up. It seemed the villagers could not make anything grow; the normally rich earth of the mountain refused to accept any seed. Ukitake had already sacrificed three turtles and one monkey—more spilled blood than any other time on record. 

This, a famine before the onset of true winter, was an evil omen. And it boded very poorly, in a logistical way, for their people. 

One night, as people’s faces began to darken and children began to cry through the night for want of food, Ukitake sat down Rukia and Renji. He explained to them, calmly but firmly, that their people would surely not survive the winter like this. Passage beyond the mountains was treacherous at this time of year, as the cold wind picked up and blew south in the direction of travel. Not to mention the unseasonal heavy rains and earthquakes they were having this year, for some reason, as if the gods were laughing at them…

The village, Ukitake explained, needed someone to brave the elements and try to reach the nearby lowland villages to trade for provisions. Preferably, the person to go on their journey would be someone with few family members to leave behind. After having been raised and cared for by the village all these years, Rukia and Renji felt a certain responsibility to go—even before Ukitake asked them point blank to take this on for the sake of their people. 

They said yes. After only a moment’s hesitation. Now here they were, rolling their wheelbarrow across a muddy valley, finally clear of the slippery mountain roads and now heading on to the uncertain flatlands. 

Flatlands meant bandits. People who hung around on the low land for stragglers. As fall turned to winter, people were more desperate… Rukia and Renji had started talking as little as possible to each other on some sort of unspoken agreement. No reason to add idle chatter to the already tense atmosphere.

As the cold water forced a shiver out of Rukia’s slim frame, the young woman focused all her energy on her breathing. She had learned to do this a long time ago to calm her nerves in times of great uncertainty. It was an easy technique. In, out. In..and hold…and out. Her nostrils were beginning to sting from the brisk wind, but pain only proved you were alive…

“Put your head down,” Renji snapped suddenly. “Lower the hood on your _mino_ to hide your face.”

This was something they actually had discussed. If they encountered bandits on the road, Rukia was to hide her face as much as possible and say not even a word. If bandits, men on the edge who had very little to lose, saw Rukia for what she was—a defenseless young woman—well then, they were in for quite a bit of trouble…

Renji lowered the brim of his _sugegasa_ as Rukia pulled the side of her hood across her face. The damp straw smelled of mildew and vaguely of the grain from the storehouse where it had been kept. For some reason, Rukia’s heartstrings pulled at the smell and she found herself longing to be home again…

But no time for that.

She flicked her eyes upwards and scanned the horizon. Sure enough, a group of about a half dozen men ambled directly towards them. They wore the haphazard armor of a hastily assembled gang. They had banged up backhoes slung over their arms, dulled scythes—clearly the weapons of former farmers. But their battle scars and grave-looking faces suggested that they had long since left that life behind in favor of a life of roaming thievery and conquering.

Renji and Rukia pushed the wheelbarrow as far to the side as they could, hoping that the gang would just pass by them as soon as they saw how meager their provisions actually were. After all, they had not even reached the village yet to try and make any trades—

“Hey, pineapple head! Whatcha got in that cart?”

No hope of that, it seemed. 

Rukia could not believe the bandits had reached them so quickly. Already, even with her eyes trained harshly on the uneven ground, she could smell the lot of them. Unwashed man bodies and harsh desperation. An unmistakable smell.

“Nothing worth looking at,” Renji answered casually. 

“Well, that just makes me want to look even more.” The leader, a man with a rusted katana dangling ostentatiously at his hip, pulled back the straw blanket covering the wheelbarrow. All of their meager provisions were exposed to the dark daylight, copper cooking utensils, a mostly empty sack of rice, a bag of wheat grown in _Aoi yama_ (their best bargaining chip)… There was also, of course, a small chest of silks and bronze coins the village managed to scrape together. But Renji and Rukia had taken care to disguise it as a case of farming seed.

“Right, so, as you can see, nothing much here.” Reni hastily laid the blanket back over the wheelbarrow as much as he could.

The burly thug kept his hand underneath the straw, pulling it away more forcefully now as he looked at Renji with an arrogant grin. “Then why you trying to hide it? Damn, boy, you need to work on your cover-up skills…”

Sighing, the man threw the blanket to the gang behind him. “Here,” he said. “Rip it apart and see if they got anything sewed into the lining on that thing.” 

On cue, the men pulled out knives and began hacking away at the straw blanket. They tore into it with a savageness that betrayed their own lack of resources—clearly, these men were themselves starving. One even stuck a handful of damp straw right in his mouth just to see if it would be worth eating. He chewed it thoughtfully for a full minute before spitting it back onto the ground.

“Nothing here, boss,” another thug called over finally, amidst the scattered leavings of straw and thread. 

The leader turned back to Renji with a frown, clearly disappointed. The young man’s fierce brown eyes shone with the spirit of the fight that was sure to break out. Rukia put her hand on Renji’s side to remind him of their situation. They had no hope against these bandits…

“Well,” the leader continued. “I guess you're not smart enough to hide your stash there. No matter. Let’s see what they got, men!”

Right away, the men started rifling through their meager supplies, pawing over rice grains, sniffing the wheat, biting on the copper to see if it was worth anything—they opened the chest and saw only the layer of wheat seed laying on top (everything valuable hidden underneath). 

Rukia thought her heart might stop as she saw one man eye the seed carefully before turning back to his boss and saying, “Looks like they’re telling the truth, Ginjo.”

The man named Ginjo narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “I don’t believe it. Look harder.” Meanwhile, he turned back to Renji and Rukia. Renji’s arm muscles twitched as he fought the urge to lash out at these men. Ruck’s fingernails dug into his skin as she willed him to stay calm.

“So what brings you two youngsters out on the road?” the man asked, crossing his arms over his chest casually. 

“…We’re headed into the village to seek shelter.” Rukia dropped her voice low to seem more mannish. “We’ve been…traveling for quite some time.” 

“Oh yeah. What village you come from?” 

A man threw one of their copper pots into the mud in disgust. Rukia remembered how her neighbor had cried to part with it…now her own blood ran hot with anger.

“ _Komugi mura,_ ” Renji answered off the cuff. It was the name of some village he heard of growing up. “It’s past the mountains to the east.”

“ _Komugi_ , huh?” Ginjo sucked his teeth. “Never heard of it before.” He approached Renji and got down on one knee so that they were face to face. “You wouldn’t be lying now, would you?”

“Just because you haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean it don’t exist,” Renji answered tersely.

Ginjo laughed in his face. “Guess that’s true.” His small eyes slid over to Rukia. “Who’s your friend here?”

“This is my…little brother,” Renji said. “His face got cut by the samurai who destroyed our village, so he hides it now…”

“Oh yeah?” Ginjo turned around to face Rukia. “That so? Let’s see your face, boy. Let’s see the mark on you.”

Rukia turned the straw hood to cover herself more fully, suddenly feeling extremely vulnerable. Ginjo’s eyes were like small fire brands poking into her flesh. His dank breath made her nostrils flare in disgust.

“Boss, look!” 

All three turned their heads. In one swing, a thug emptied the chest’s contents into the street. The dull sound of seeds mixing with coins assaulted them as the small stash emptied onto the mushy ground. All their silks and scant riches were out in the open now. 

Rukia held her throat to keep from crying out. What could they trade after this…?

Ginjo went over to inspect their treasures. He poked around the coins and rubbed the silks on his fingers. Turning back over to Renji with a sigh he asked, “This all you got?”

Renji was staring at the ground. “Yes,” he said between clenched teeth. “We were headed to the next village to trade for food and water to last us through the winter.”

The older man nodded at his men and the bandits scraped the coins and silks together. They stuffed everything into a sack, making sure not to leave even a single coin behind. Ginjo took his sheathed sword in hand and poked Renji’s chest with it, making the younger boy take a step backwards.

“I think you got a little more than that on you. And I have to tell you, if you were headed to that village over yonder, you’re out of luck anyway. My men and I just came from there and we sacked the place good.”

A few bandits snickered at the comment. Rukia gasped involuntarily, seeing now the newly dried blood on their armor, a brownish red, mixed with some black smears of ash here and there…clearly they had just from a bloody fight that ended in some kind of fire.

“Burned the place to the ground, didn’t we boss?”

“Yeah, that place was worth shit all anyway.”

“Even the women stank like stable horses.”

More snickers. Renji settled into a fighting stance and Rukia forgot to stop him. He reached into his _shihakusho_ and pulled out a small knife. In less than a second, Renji was lunging at Ginjo with an ill-timed strike—

“Renji, no!”

Ginjo easily sidestepped the blow and grabbed a fistful of Renji’s hair. With the practiced ease of a man accustomed to violence, he pulled Renji’s arm behind his back at an awkward angle. Yelping in pain, Renji dropped the knife instantly.

“Now that’s not nice, kid,” Ginjo said, forcing Renji’s arm back farther until his bones audibly creaked. 

“Stop, please!” Rukia cried. She took a stop toward them, forgetting herself.

“The mysterious boy speaks!” Ginjo cried. “Let’s see your face now, boy!”

Two mean came up behind Rukia and held her shoulders firmly. Trapped, Rukia struggled on instinct in their grasp. Sniggering at her helplessness, one man pulled away the hood of her _mino._

Her face finally revealed, Ginjo nodded his head in approval. “That’s a damn pretty boy, huh?” Renji was looking at Rukia in panic. “Fact, I say that’s a woman we got here.” 

The same man who pulled away her hood began running his palm across her cheek, smearing dirt and ash on her pale face in the process. Rukia gasped and turned her head away, twisting hard in against their heavy grip. The unyielding force of that man’s hand made her feel like she was naked, uncomfortably exposed.

Tears in her eyes, Rukia tried to bite that offending hand. She missed and the men laughed at her instead. 

“Oh, she’s a fighter!”

“Got a wild one!”

“So what should we do with her, boss?”

A smile broke out on Ginjo’s face. “Wild but pretty…” he mused.

“You keep your hands off her!” Renji cried out. Ginjo pulled the boy’s arm upward now until a large crack signified that it had finally broken. Renji groaned in pain as his hand went limp.

“Just leave us alone, please!” Rukia yelled. Tears of frustration pooled at the corners of her eyes. She hated to see Renji like that, hated even more her own helplessness. “We have nothing else for you to steal!”

“Eh, I doubt that,” Ginjo replied. He tossed Renji onto the ground like a rag doll, stomping on his back to keep him down. “I doubt that very much.”

Chuckling, one man pulled back the parting of Rukia’s _shihakusho_ , exposing more of her bony chest underneath. She flinched, grinding her teeth together in hatred and fear.

Ginjo approached her slowly, leaving Renji on the ground. Taking in all her of enraged young form, he trailed his dirty fingertips down the dip of her neck. Rukia held her breath to try and stop herself from feeling anything. Could she do that? Stop all physical sensation to her body? She sincerely hoped so…

As he trailed his fingers down her chest, Ginjo palmed her barely-there breasts beneath the fabric. “Small chest you got, huh?”

“Tiny boobs.”

“Skin and bones, really.”

Her face was on fire, now. Her whole body quivering in disgust and nerves. She felt as if her body was trying to rid itself of something, violently, something settling now in the core of her soul—the fear of what these men would do…

Suddenly, Ginjo’s eyes widened and he sucked in a wheezy breath. Rukia heard the muffled sound of a knife sinking into something… Ginjo wavered on his feet, revealing Renji (covered in mud, his right arm useless at his side) with his knife buried in Ginjo’s back.

“I said, get your hands off her…” he breathed, holding the knife in Ginjo with all the force he had left.

A trickle of blood escaped Ginjo’s mouth and his eyes glazed over. Renji pulled out his knife with a slick _woosh_ , making Ginjo stumble to his knees. The other bandits began moving around in a panic. They let Rukia go somehow in all the confusion. She ran immediately over to Renji’s side and wrapped her arms around his shoulders to keep him standing. 

“Run, get out of here, Rukia…” he whispered.

“Not without you,” she said in determination.

The shifty eyed bandit who had felt up Rukia’s face wasted no time pulling the katana out of Ginjo’s weak grip. He even kicked the man over to help him on his way down. No love amongst thieves, it seemed. Raising the katana high in the air, the man brandished the sword and attacked Rukia and Renji. Clearly he was the new leader of this bunch. 

On instinct, Rukia covered Renji’s body with her own. She could not let Renji die, absolutely not! Not after promising Ukitake she would be the one to take care of them both. Not after surviving through all the harsh years of their childhood right next to Renji…Renji was like a blood brother to her, and he had just saved her from Ginjo—

Rukia inhaled sharply as she felt the edge of the blade run across her back. At first it was only a sharp stinging, then it settled into a mind-numbing, burning pain that wracked her whole form. She felt warm blood trickling down her back from the wound, nerves flaring up and then throbbing as they were exposed to daylight for the first time, muscles twitching at the foreign sensation…

A deep slash to her back. Rukia suddenly could not breathe or hear. Still holding onto Renji, she dropped to her knees. 

“Rukia!!” Renji cried, wriggling out of her grasp. He charged the man with the katana, even as several more men rushed to join the fray. Rukia fell to the ground then turned over on her side to try and see what was happening. She could only turn halfway before the pain in her back was too great to move any farther.

A crimson trail of blood ran across the ground to meet her.

Rukia huffed out uneven breaths. “Renji…” she said weakly, unsure if anyone could hear her. There was the sound of swords clashing, metal on metal. Blackness crept on the edge of her vision and then—

A white image. Pure white, tinged with pale crystalline blue. 

The image—whatever it was—flashed across her vision, startling her. She blinked and opened her eyes wide glancing around in panic to see what that was. It had seemed so close to her, right up against her face. But, now it was gone. 

“Rukia, please!’

Suddenly energized again, Rukia turned over to look at Renji. He was bleeding, to be sure, from more than one wound, but he was still on his feet. Somehow he had gotten hold of the katana. 

Their eyes met and Renji stared at his lifelong friend with meaning. “Please, get out of here Rukia! You need to go, now!”

Even though every part of her soul was telling her not to leave Renji behind, she knew that sitting there doing nothing would get them both killed. Maybe she could run and get help. Maybe there was someone out there….

Rukia used every bit of strength she had to rise up onto her feet. Her muscles burned and ached, as if weighed down by something unrelenting. But once she was finally standing, it got easier. 

She scanned the horizon and decided to leave the path of the road. Something told her there would only be more bandits there, more death waiting for them up ahead. So, in her blind panic and haste to find something (anything), she ran into the empty valley alongside the path.

The land around them stretched far and wide, but the lowland valley itself came to an abrupt halt about a half mile away where it ran into a surprisingly thick forest. Something told Rukia that trees were good. Trees meant cover. Yes, that’s what she needed, some cover to hide her exposed body…then she could regroup, go meet up with Renji later when she composed herself and found help.

But for now, yes, trees. 

Rukia ran with everything she had to the forest. Several times her vision blackened on the way. She fell once, landing hard on her knees. She thought she was about to die—but then a cold winter’s breeze slapped her in the face, waking her up.

In the back of her mind, she knew that wasn’t right. Winter? It was too soon for that. And the wind was blowing from the wrong direction…

But Rukia ran on. She felt shadow overheard and the earthy smell of the forest, telling her she had finally reached the trees. Resting her hand on a coarse tree trunk, she stopped to catch her breath. The bark was cool to the touch, reassuring. 

And yet, Rukia could not get enough breath. Holding onto the tree, Rukia let herself fold into a sitting position. She had no strength left to go deeper into the forest. At least she had made it to the trees…thank the mountain god for helping her get this far…

Soft ground cradled her head and Rukia fell into darkness.

________________________________________________________________

In the darkness, there was a figure. A person? Yes, perhaps. Very faint, very far away from her. But pure white in form. Unnaturally so, as if nothing of the earth had ever touched this person.

Even in her dreams, Rukia felt the need to blink. Every time she closed her eyes, she felt her face brushing against some cool silky fabric. She would open her eyes again in question, only to be met with white cloth caressing her face in one fleeting swoop. Somehow she knew it was a kimono’s sleeve, the long sleeve of a _furisode…_ disappearing into darkness.

The sleeve felt good, kept her tethered to this world. But now Rukia realized there were many levels of reality. That reality, with the white figure and the sleeve against her face, was just one sub-level. Real reality, the world she had known all her life, lay somewhere beyond, somewhere above this…

Sometimes Rukia felt herself floating upwards into the real reality. She could smell a healthy forest around her, feel herself moving then laying still. There was…orange. Thin orange strands of hair and soft human hands. Something about those hands meant life itself to Rukia. She reached out and tried to hold those hands.

Once, she made contact. “Unh…” she said, unsure if she was saying words or not.

The hand laced its fingers around hers. 

“It’s alright,” a kind, distinctly feminine voice said to her. “You’re alright now.” 

Rukia held onto that hand with all her might, clinging to life. Whoever this person was, she knew they would save her. She longed to hear that voice again, often tried to call to it, that voice was so comforting in its own right…more comforting even than the voice of her sister Hisana, the last person of Rukia’s family to have disappeared from her life…

_Don’t disappear…_ She willed. She held her face against the white sleeve of the kimono and tried to push her will to the surface of reality. _Please don’t disappear…_

“I won’t.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very excited for how this fic might turn out. Planning on four chapters, but you know me, might be more by the end. Stay tuned for what will happen to our battle-worn heroines!


	2. Verdant Green

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rukia and Orihime meet for the first time. There is a lot of curiosity on both sides.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Note on historical underwear: So I searched and I searched but I could not find a clear answer on the underwear women wore in ancient Japan. Men wore fundoshi, obviously, but with women it kind of seems like the answer is yes and no when it comes to wearing underwear at all. Shorts-like underwear was unheard of in this time period. Some women wore koshimaki which is a kind of long thin skirt wrapped around the hips. But I get the feeling this was only worn on special occasions and among women of higher status. So I don’t really know. Hence, in this, our girls do not have underwear. But Rukia does wear a juban, which is an under kimono that I think keeps her warm.
> 
> As far as bras go, women bound their chest in cloth wrappings to keep their figures slim and cylindrical in shape.
> 
> dorotabou - the risen corpse of a farmer who haunts his abused land
> 
> obake - sometimes called a bakemono. A transforming kind of yokai, usually humanoid, capable of changing into some kind of creature at night or at will.
> 
> mujina - a type of animal yokai derived from the tanuki, the raccoon dog, and the badger.

**Chapter Three: Verdant Green**

The darkness around Rukia began to dissipate slowly. Sometimes now, she felt like she was almost awake. And yet, her eyes refused to cooperate and open on command. It seemed her strength had not returned yet.

As she lay there, helpless, Rukia tried to piece together what had happened to her. She remembered bright, unimaginable pain; she remembered fearing for her life, for Renji’s life…

“…Ren…ji…” she mumbled, writhing against the ground. 

Rukia knew for sure she was on the ground. There was a spongy coldness against her back that could only be forest grass. She was not cold, though, not really. And the pain…

The pain from her wound throbbed dully. It barely hurt now. Sometimes the pain would flare up again all of a sudden and she would cry out—

“Ah!”

At those times, Rukia would wish for the strength to run away from this pain. For that to be something she, or anyone, could do…but then she would be greeted by those same soft hands again. The hands were accompanied by keen warmth, spreading out over her back until the pain stopped. It was an unnatural warmth and Rukia could see a kind of yellow, eerie light behind her eyelids.

Where was she and exactly what was going on?

Sometimes she heard voices. Distinctly more than one voice. But there was always that young woman as well. She had a light, almost girlish timbre in her voice, but she did not sound so young in age.

“Just a little more,” the girl said quietly. “Are you alright, Ayame?”

Silence. Then faintly, from an impossibly quiet whisper, “Yes, princess.”

“Don’t work yourself too hard, guys!” called another voice. This one sounded like a young man. But he spoke in another tiny, whisper-like tone. 

“We’re fine, Shun’o, but thank you for your concern.” 

Sometimes the other voices were too quiet to hear and it sounded like the girl was talking to herself. “I know, but…” “No, it’ll be fine, just help me lift her again…”

More than once, Rukia could hear a strange buzzing around her ears—as if a large dragonfly were hovering near her face. She felt tiny pinpricks as well, like being poked with something sharp. 

“Don’t do that, Tsubaki!” the girl cried. “Stop being mean!”

Then there were other times Rukia felt like she was totally alone. These were the times she feared the most. Loneliness consumed her until it felt like her skin was crawling with the stuff. Terrible. And alone she would surely die…

The white kimono against her face kept her from tears of despair. 

_“You’re never alone…”_ A voice said. Deep, but womanly. Coming from somewhere inside her…

Finally, one day, Rukia felt her body ascend into natural sleep. She felt rested and light—no trace of pain anywhere across her body. And she could finally open her eyes… Slowly, centimeter by centimeter, Rukia opened her eyes and took in her surroundings.

She was in the clearing of a forest. The trees around her were so thick Rukia could not see any trace of the path she had followed to get here. Then again, how had she gotten here? Beyond that, the forest looked so green. Impossibly healthy for the time of year. The leaves and the plants assaulted Rukia with verdant abundance everywhere she turned.

This is not right, she thought. The trees were ripe like the middle of summer. But it should have been early winter…

A buzzing near her face startled Rukia out of her thoughts. She turned her head sharply to the sound, but was met only with the sight of a young orange-haired girl crouching over a small fire. 

That orange. She recognized it from her dreams. The girl’s hair was wild, a tangled mess of knots and snags, looking almost like an animal’s nest. Whoever she was, this girl had gone un-combed for quite some time. 

Then, the girl tilted her head to the side, as if listening to something near her ear. But Rukia could see nothing. 

Suddenly the girl gasped. “Really?!” She turned around to stare directly at Rukia. 

When their eyes met, Rukia felt all the breath in her body escape her in one long rush. Those eyes. This girl had large, watery brown eyes that held more emotion in one look than Rukia had ever felt from any single person. This girl seemed to feel enough for at least a dozen people, her brown eyes bright and fluid as her transparent heart. Breathless, Rukia could do nothing but hold the girl’s gaze as she withstood the feeling of being stared at so thoroughly—

“Oh my goodness!” The girl crawled over to Rukia on her knees. “Are you awake? Can you see me?” 

She reached out and laid a soft hand on Rukia’s forehead. Rukia twitched on instinct against the touch, but she relaxed right away. Those hands were familiar. She had felt them in her sleep. 

“I…” Rukia managed to mutter weakly. 

“Shh, shh,” the girl coaxed. She stroked Rukia’s forehead softly. “Don’t try to speak right away. Let yourself get used to being awake first. You’ve been sleeping for quite some time!”

A shimmering buzzing sound flitted near the girl’s right shoulder. “That’s right,” the girl said, nodding in agreement to something only she had heard. “Almost a week now.” 

Rukia’s heart beat wildly as she heard that. A week? Everything that had happened to her on the road—the bandits, getting slashed across the back, Renji fighting a losing battle— “Renji!” she cried, unconsciously jerking up into a sitting position. 

The girl scooted back on her knees to give Rukia more space. “Renji,” she repeated softly. “You said that name quite a bit in your sleep.”

Rukia looked around frantically. There was no sign of Renji here in the forest. Where was he? “Is…where’s Renji?” she asked aloud, feeling more than a little confused.

Shaking her head, the girl said softly, “I’m sorry, I don’t know who that is.”

Rukia held onto her head as a fierce pain lodged itself in her temple. “But, I…don’t…I don’t understand…”

“Here,” the girl put her hands on Rukia’s shoulders. She guided the other girl to lay back down again. “Just rest for a bit. I’m sure you have questions. Let me explain how I found you, maybe that will help.”

Once Rukia was laying down again, she took a deep breath. Her headache dissipated a little now that she was horizontal. But her panic had not subsided in the least. If Renji was not here then he was most likely dead…no, that couldn’t be, it couldn’t happen like that…

“I found you a week ago on the edge of the forest,” the girl explained. As she talked, she reached out to a pail of water nearby. She scooped some of the water into her hand and held her palm against Rukia’s mouth. Unsure what else to do, Rukia opened her lips and let the girl pour water into her mouth in this bizarre way, directly from her hand.

“You were hurt bad,” the girl continued. “There was a deep cut on your back and you were losing a lot of blood. So I brought you here.” The girl scooped several more handfuls of water into Rukia’s mouth. “It seemed like the safest place. We healed you here, but it took a long time. That wound was more serious than I thought.” She sighed. “Honestly, I’m just glad you’re awake now!”

With that, the girl broke out into a wide smile. Her eyes closed halfway in the process. A genuine, joyful smile. Rukia had never seen a face like that before—especially not recently, with everyone in her village worried about the oncoming winter season…

Oh, right. Her village. Rukia had not completed her mission by a long shot. What would happen to her village if she did not succeed…? Well, she knew what would happen, but it was too awful to put into words.

“Th-thank you…” she managed, swallowing more water. She turned her head to the side when the girl offered her more, showing that she did not want to drink anymore. “I mean, thank you for…saving me…”

Still, Rukia could not shake her confusion. She could see no signs of medicinal materials anywhere near here. Nor did the girl look like someone who could carry a mostly-dead body deep into the forest. So, exactly how had this girl saved her? If anything, she had far more questions now.

The biggest question of all: Who on earth was this girl? Why was she here? She looked like a wild growing thing, part of the forest itself. As natural as the trees or the plants…

“You’re welcome!” the girl said brightly. She stood up on her feet and stretched. Rukia watched her curiously as she moved. 

This girl had the body of a young woman. She looked to be the same age as Rukia. And yet, unlike Rukia, her body was full and lithe in such a way…Rukia could not stop herself from running her eyes all over this girl’s body, taking in every detail. First of all, the girl was wearing a yukata, the sleeves long since torn away, the hem as ratty as the ripped armholes. The yukata appeared to be light brown in color, but Rukia realized that the color had faded out of it slowly, dying it brown from whatever color it once was. In fact, the yukata looked to be too small for this girl—like she had grown out of it after wearing it far past its intended use.

Beyond that, the girl wore nothing underneath. Rukia could see the girl’s full (impossibly full, almost ridiculously large) breasts jumbling underneath the threadbare fabric. She blushed in spite of herself, her eyes darting around aimlessly to have something else to look at. The women in her village would never be so immodest, they never went out without binding their breasts appropriately (especially if they were unlucky enough to have so…voluptuous a pair). 

“Are you feeling up to eating?” 

Rukia kept her eyes closed for a second longer. Slowly, she turned her head and looked at the girl. 

She was stirring a pot over the fire, holding what looked to be a makeshift spoon. Rukia watched as the girl sniffed the pot experimentally then dropped in a handful of mushrooms. She smiled contentedly to herself as she stirred. “It looks really good,” she promised cheerily. 

Rukia’s stomach gurgled in interest. She blinked several times trying to orient herself. She accepted several facts at the same time: Yes, she was here, in the middle of the forest somewhere, alongside a strange girl in a child’s yukata with twigs sticking out of her hair. Yes, she had been pulled back from the brink of death by this girl—a total stranger. And yes, she was completely fascinated by this girl, had never met anyone like her…

“I’m sorry,” Rukia said slowly. The longer she stayed awake, the stronger she felt. She twisted her body to face the girl head on. “But…what’s your name?”

“My name?” The girl turned around in surprise. “Oh, right! My name, I haven’t told you yet. Sorry! I’m Orihime.” 

“Orihime…?” Rukia said the word slowly. It sounded like a first name, but who would ever give their first name before their last in casual conversation with a stranger? Yet another oddity about this girl.

“Yup, that’s me!” The girl named Orihime smiled back with no intention of giving any more information. She scooped some of the soup in the pot into a makeshift wooden bowl and scooted over to Rukia. 

“Here,” she said kindly, warmth and encouragement radiating throughout her voice. She held out the spoon to Rukia’s lips.

Closing her eyes, Rukia parted her lips and accepted the hot soup. It tasted slightly sour, almost bitter, but it felt amazing to have any kind of taste passing her lips. For the first time since she could not remember when. Her and Renji had been subsisting on nothing but plain rice…to have an actual flavor in her mouth again made Rukia’s eyes water as she savored the taste. 

“Good?” Orihime asked, spooning out some more. 

Rukia nodded quickly.

Humming contentedly, Orihime continued to feed her soup until the bowl was empty. Flashing Rukia another brilliant smile, she walked back to the fire and poured her own bowl. She ate in silence and rather quickly. When she was done, she put the bowl aside and stood up.

Rukia watched Orihime the whole time. Her eyes were riveted to the sight, first of all. Secondly, Rukia wanted to see if she could glean any more information about Orihime just by watching her. Of course, there were a lot of things about the girl that were fairly obvious right away. She could tell this girl’s body was covered in muscle. She looked athletic and healthy, her skin smooth and unblemished (if a little dusty from going unwashed for perhaps too long). 

“Well, I’m going to the river to wash these bowls. I’ll be right back, okay?” 

Rukia glanced over to the side. “…Yeah…” she said noncommittally. 

“You’re sure you’ll be alright?” Orihime asked, sounding legitimately worried.

Rukia nodded in silence. Even though, in truth, she hated the thought of being alone…

_You’re never alone._

She remembered the words. She could not remember who had said them to her though. But, for whatever reason, they were enough to give her strength to open her eyes and look back at Orihime.

“Yes, I’m—”

But she stopped short as she realized Orihime was standing directly over her in an awkward kind of way. She had not expected Orihime to come so close…All it took was one quick glance downward and Rukia had a clear glimpse of the dark place between the girl’s legs, hidden by shadow—

Now she felt her cheeks burn. Stammering, she forced herself to meet Orihime’s eyes again. The girl looked completely unashamed. She tilted her head to the side curiously.

Rukia wondered if she had sustained some kind of head injury as well. Why was she looking at this girl so blatantly—and why was she looking at her _there_ of all places? It was nothing she hadn’t seen before, so why…?

“Don’t worry,” Orihime said softly, bending down at the waist slightly. “I’ll leave some of my friends here with you so you won’t be alone.”

Rukia regarded the girl in silence for a moment.

“I’m…sorry,” she began, frowning. “Your…friends?” 

“Yes, the same friends who helped me take care of you when you were hurt.” Orihime held out her hand, palm facing upwards. Rukia thought she saw a glimpse of light, but then it faded quickly. 

Nothing happened.

“Umm…” Rukia said awkwardly. The silence pointed towards Orihime’s instability. Was this girl really…alright? Was there something wrong with her? “I…don’t see anything.” 

“Really?” Orihime frowned in confusion and held her hand closer to her face. She sighed. “Yeah, I guess they’re hiding. They don’t want to be seen right now.” 

“They…what?” Rukia asked. 

All the confusion, the mixed emotions (panic, fear, curiosity, gratitude, shame) all of these feelings swirled inside her and made her feel like she was about to pass out. Her eyes started closing of their own accord.

“It’s alright,” Orihime said gently, stroking Rukia’s forehead again. “You’ll get to see them soon enough I’m sure. You seem like a good person. Now, won’t you tell me your name?”

Rukia felt a kind of calming energy radiating from Orihime’s hand. She knew, somehow, that she would be safe with this girl. Why? She had no idea. 

“Rukia…” she murmured, right on the edge of sleep. “Kuchiki Rukia.” 

“I see,” Orihime whispered, continuing to stroke her. “Kuchiki Rukia. Well, you seem like a good person, Rukia-san. I feel like I can trust you.”

“Trust me…with what?” Rukia asked. 

But before she could hear the answer she was already asleep.

_____________________________________________________

She woke up under cover of darkness. For one terrifying moment, Rukia thought she was already dead. Had she died sometime during her sleep? But then, what would happen to Renji—

“Renji!” she cried, sitting up and scrambling in the darkness. The dark of the forest felt stifling. She could not breathe. Now she saw that it was clearly nighttime, not death, but still—the darkness felt oddly unnatural. 

Glancing out into the den of trees, Rukia heard a snapping of twigs, like an animal approaching. She looked more closely, tensing her body to get ready for some kind of action. A thick shadow fell over her and Rukia thought she was being felt up by the darkness. Between the trees a hulking shape shifted its black figure…

“Rukia…”

The young woman felt a hand on her wrist. She jumped in response, but turned around only to be met with the sight of Orihime’s clear, kind eyes. Orihime was staring at her intensely, but even in the dark Rukia could see the girl was smiling.

“Don’t be afraid,” Orihime said quietly. “They’ll only come closer if they think you’re afraid.”

A small light glowed in the palm of Orihime’s hand. Rukia looked down, thinking the girl had some kind of match with her…but as she looked on, it seemed like Orihime was holding a fistful of light itself. No origin.

“How…?” Rukia whispered. 

But she was cut off by the sound of the strange creature in the forest letting out a low, deep groan. Rukia’s whole body tensed. The hell was that thing? Clearly alive, but what would make a sound like that?

There could be only one answer. This deep in the forest, away from the eyes of normal people. It had to be.

“An oni!” Rukia tried to scream, but her voice would allow nothing more than a whisper to escape.

Orihime nodded, facing the blackness with determination. “Yes,” she said. “But I’ve seen him before. He’s actually not a bad guy, he’s just curious to see you around here. You’re new and this is his home, after all. So he’s coming to inspect. Better ward him off, though.

Shiten Koushun _._ ”

As Orihime uttered the strange words, a triangle of yellow light emerged from her outstretched hands, blocking the path from them to the oni. The light effectively cut the oni’s line of sight as well. After a few breathless moments, Rukia saw the shadowy creature shuffle away. 

Orihime was sitting up on her knees now. She kept the barrier up. Rukia could not say or do anything in response. Orihime was illuminated by the light, her whole figure clear as day in the dense darkness. Everywhere the light shone, the creeping shadows were dispelled. They seemed to inch away from the pair of women while Orihime’s light spread. Suddenly, Rukia felt like the strongest presence in the forest was nothing other than Orihime and her strange light. 

Needless to say, just being around such a thing was making Rukia’s head spin. She felt dizzy and needed to lay down again. She fell on her stomach in confusion, knowing in her heart now that she had either irreparably damaged her head or that Orihime was capable of otherworldly powers. Strange, unnatural powers. Actually, that would explain quite a bit. This could not bode well…

But, just as she was starting to feel her eyes close again in overwhelming tiredness, Rukia saw Orihime look back at her. The girl was smiling confidently and happily. 

Was this the face of a person Rukia needed to fear? The face of the person who had saved her life?

The next morning, Rukia woke abruptly to the sound of calmness and quiet. A cold sun made its way through the branches of the trees to reach Rukia’s reclining body, covered only by a thin blanket. Come to think of it, why wasn’t she colder? She should be, especially considering it was almost winter.

Looking around, Rukia thought for a moment that Orihime had left her. A sliver of panic ran through her form. Was she capable of surviving without this girl? Could she stand on her own?

Trying to test the theory, Rukia ambled into a sitting position. Slowly, she stretched out her legs and attempted to stand. Leaning most of her weight on one shaky leg, Rukia gritted her teeth and tried to stand fully upright. 

“Nope.”

Startled, Rukia fell over at the sound. It sounded like a man’s voice—but there were no men here! She whipped her head around trying to see who it was, but she could see nothing. Only the eerie buzzing sound of a dragonfly greeted her.

“Yeah, you’re still too weak to stand. Might as well give it a rest.” 

“Wh-whose there?” Rukia called. She felt uncomfortably vulnerable on her stomach, unable to move. 

Still nothing but the sound of wings buzzing, now directly over her back. No matter how she twisted and turned, Rukia could not get a good look at whatever it was.

“Let’s see how that wound of yours is healing…”

“Get away from me!” Rukia hissed. She felt afraid, suddenly remembering what it felt like to be at a man’s mercy.

_“We’ve got a fighter!”_

_“Tiny boobs.”_

_“Wild but pretty.”_

She remembered what Ginjo and those other bandits had said to her. She remembered what it felt like to have their foul hands on her body, how it felt to be held captive by those unyielding men…

On panic reflex, Rukia flipped over onto her back and kicked upward, flailing with all her might. She made contact with something—something that actually felt like a dragonfly, in all honesty. Whatever it was, she hit it hard and it went flying straight into a nearby rock.

Rejuvenated by her success, Rukia scrambled onto her knees and held her hands out in front of her bracingly. When she breathed out, she could feel some kind of coldness escaping her. Why was there coldness _inside_ her body, though? Normally cold came from the outside…

“Oww!” came a small cry from the rock. Rukia strained her eyes to see what was talking. At first there was nothing. She blinked several times. 

Suddenly, when her eyes opened, she saw a tiny man laying against the rock. It looked like he had always been there. She looked closer and saw that the tiny man had…dragonfly wings. 

Rukia shook her head in disbelief. Her mind was playing tricks on her! But when she looked again, the man was still there, ambling now into a sitting position, straightening out his bent wings in irritation.

“Come on,” he muttered, beating his wings experimentally. “I was just trying to help you out and this is the thanks I get!” 

“I…” Rukia almost apologized. But that, could not be right. This creature was some sort of phenomenon. Why would she apologize to something like that?

Confident in his wing’s strength, the tiny man took to flight right before Rukia’s eyes. He darted to and fro at a rapid pace, then came to hover directly in front of Rukia’s face. He shook his head at her and slapped her nose with one tiny hand.

“Hey!” Rukia cried, holding onto her nose. That had actually hurt more than she expected. Considering this…thing…was so small.

“That’s what you get!” The man put his hands on his hips. This close, Rukia could see he had spiky black hair with a scarred face, and he wore a bandana around his mouth. “Don’t go throwing me anywhere you like!”

“I’m sorry!” Rukia huffed. “I just…” Well, she had said it. And, in truth, it was obvious now that this creature was definitely real. He had hit her on the nose after all. “I mean…what exactly…are you?”

“Ain’t it obvious?” the tiny flying man said. 

“Some type of _mononoke_?” Rukia asked. “A demon maybe?”

“Now you’re just getting offensive!” the man circled around a few more times in indignation. “Just because I can hold my own in a fight don’t make me a demon! I don’t hang around with those fang-toothed guys. Waste of time that bunch.”

Just then, they heard franticly running footsteps and saw Orihime’s tangled mess of hair approaching from the den of trees. She leapt over fallen branches and saplings like they were nothing.

“Tsubaki!” Orihime cried. “Are you alright?”

“Hmmph!” The little creature flew towards Orihime and tapped her head with his fist in admonishment. “Listen to me, girl! This is the last time I stay behind with this one. She fights nasty.”

“Fighting?” A yellow-haired fairy wearing red traditional garments, with pale green wings sticking out of his back at an awkward angle, darted out from behind Orihime. “Why ever would there be fighting?”

“Ask her that!” Tsubaki pointed an accusatory finger at Rukia. “I was just trying to see if her back was healed yet or not! Then she goes punching me into that rock over there.”

“Oh,” Orihime said. “I felt you get injured from where I was by the river. Are you feeling okay, Tsubaki?”

“Yeah yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine. No thanks to you!” 

As he ranted, crossing his arms in front of his chest, a whole group of fairies emerged from behind Orihime’s back. Some clearly male, some female. One was a tiny little creature covered by a dress that was too large for her body. She was small, but bold it seemed, as she approached Rukia directly and flew up against her back.

“You seem fine, Tsubaki,” said another fairy. This one was a red-headed girl with pink wings and tight blue clothing. “Quit complaining already.”

“Rukia-san,” Orihime said, kneeling down beside the tiny fairy near Rukia’s back. “I’m sorry if Tsubaki startled you. But please try to be careful with my friends. They can be rather sensitive.” She held up a hand and whispered conspiratorially to Rukia, “Especially Tsubaki.”

“I heard that!” Tsubaki swooped in, his black and red wings buzzing furiously as he hovered between the two women. “Who are you calling sensitive?”

“Oh, leave them alone!” The pink-winged fairy was back. “You know how you get!”

“No, I don’t know, Lily. Why don’t you tell me?” 

With that, the two fairies descended into bickering. They flew around each other, taking jabs and tumbling around the air like children. Rukia watched from amazement where she sat. 

“These…” Rukia said slowly, turning back to Orihime who was trying unsuccessfully to get the two to stop fighting. “Are your friends?”

The young girl turned back to Rukia with a happy smile on her face. “Yup! These are the friends I told you about. Looks like they finally feel comfortable showing themselves around you.” 

“Nice to meet you!” Rukia turned sharply to see the blonde, male fairy standing on her shoulder. “My name’s Shun’o. Don’t see many other folks around here besides the princess. Pleased to meet you!” He bowed politely.

“Ah, um…” Rukia swallowed. “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet…you.”

Two other fairies, clearly male as well, hovered nearby. One was big burly man with a mask over half of his face, the other looked like some type of goblin with a red glass on one eye. They nodded but did not say anything.

Orihime giggled distractedly. “Well,” she said. “The gang’s all here now! If you want to thank anyone, thank Ayame behind you. She’s the one who helps me with all the healing.”

Slowly, Rukia turned around and saw the smallest fairy inspecting her back with scrutiny. The fairy blinked awkwardly and said nothing. 

“Oh, well…” Rukia had never spoken to supernatural creatures before. Not face to face, anyway. But here she was and there was no other way around the fact that this was all actually happening. “Thank you.”

The tiny fairy named Ayame bowed respectfully.

It seemed this forest was magical, Rukia reasoned. That also made a bit of sense. One could often find yokai deep in the woods. Even their mountain, _Aoi Yama,_ was said to be home to hundreds of yokai. One could find a _dorotabou,_ a frightening creature, the stuff of childhood ghost stories, on the mountain path leading away from town. Rumor was a farmer had been killed by his wife’s brother for land, and now his dead body walked endlessly along the path of the mountain, saying only, “Grain for one, please?” on and on. 

In truth, Rukia was frightened by the story of the _dorotabou_ and any talk of oni or other kinds of demons. She prayed to the mountain god, who was said to look something like a huge tortoise, but she hoped in truth she would never have to actually meet him. Things of the supernatural gave her an odd feeling on the back of her neck, an uncomfortable fear. 

There were things, Rukia knew, that man could not control. Things that were better off avoided. Yokai and _kami_ , these were some of those things.

But now that she had actually met some yokai, a bunch of fairies no less, Rukia did not feel quite so disturbed. They seemed almost like little people. Little people with…wings. But that was not so strange.

The strangest thing in all this was Orihime. Did this girl…live with the yokai of the forest? No, that was too odd to consider. Surely this girl had a village of some sort. 

“Orihime,” Rukia said softly. Orihime was nodding to Ayame happily as the fairy confirmed that Rukia’s back was quite well. “Where, um…where’s your village?”

“Oh!” Orihime smiled perhaps a bit too brightly. “No village. Not for a while anyway.”

No village? Rukia blinked and put the pieces together. No village meant that this place really was Orihime’s home…the yokai forest. So then, what was Orihime? A witch, some fallen priestess? An _obake_ of some kind…? 

That last thought made Rukia’s pulse race. She inched away from Orihime slowly.

“So…” Rukia began as Orihime got another fire going. “Is this where you all live, then? Here in the forest?”

“That’s right! For a long time now.” 

“Uh…how…long?”

Suddenly, Tsubaki came up behind Rukia and thumped her on the head. “You idiot! Orihime’s not an _obake_! She’s a person just like you!”

Rukia flapped her hand to shoo off the belligerent fairy. She would have preferred not to say it out loud…

“Oh, is that what you thought, Rukia-san?” Orihime giggled lightly, almost in a self-effacing way. “No, I’m a person. For sure. But I guess…well, I’ve always been more comfortable around yokai than people. You wouldn’t be the first one to think I’m really an _obake_ in disguise.” 

For some reason, Rukia felt like Orihime sounded sad.

“I’m sorry,” Rukai said. “I didn’t mean to offend you. Just…I guess I’ve never met someone who lived alongside yokai like you do.” 

“That’s understandable!” Orihime said brightly. The fairies began settling in the leaves of the trees, carving out their nests comfortably. It seemed that was where they slept. Slowly, they faded out of view from Rukia. She blinked in the fading light, trying to see where they had gone. 

“Don’t worry,” Orihime said, walking over to Rukia with a bowl full of freshly brewed tea. “Like all yokai, my friends can only be seen when they want to be seen. Right now they’re tired, so they want a little privacy. Good night guys!”

If any of them answered her back, Rukia could not hear it. Now the two girls sat in silence as the sun faded slowly and day turned into night. Rukia sipped the tea, thanked Orihime for making it, and thought. She had a lot to consider.

Her top priority was, of course, getting back to Renji. She knew it was highly likely her friend has already perished, but even so. If he was dead then she needed to find him and give his corpse a proper burial. But that would mean leaving the cover of the forest. And Rukia did not feel like she was strong enough yet. Just being on her feet for a fraction of a second today had left her feeling weak.

But soon. As soon as she could stand and walk on her own, Rukia needed to leave and find Renji. Then, now that she was definitely still alive, she needed to find a way to save her village from extinction. Of course. It’s what any loyal girl would do, and she had promised Ukitake…

Besides that, after everything, Rukia felt like she would trust Orihime. I didn’t make any sense, but then, neither did any of this. But, watching Orihime hum softly to herself while she prepared their dinner, tossing a tangled strand of hair over her shoulder in distraction…Rukia looked at Orihime with fascination and appreciation. 

This girl survived out here in the forest. Alone, holding her own amongst yokai. She was tougher than she looked. And she looked, well…she looked strong when you really took notice of her.

“Orihime-san,” Rukia began again. “I don’t know how I can ever thank you. For saving me and for caring for me like you did.” Rukia blushed. She was not used to someone being this kind to her. Even in the village, one did not get something for nothing. She and Renji were allowed to live in their neighbors’ sheds if they worked for it. But when they got sick, they had to care for each other or else rack up some kind of debt with a townsperson. 

But this girl—this bizarre, unnatural girl—had decided to care for Rukia for nothing. A complete stranger. What kind of person helped strangers in these unfavorable times? More than likely, Orihime should have let her die and salvaged what she could from her corpse! That’s what most people would have done, especially on the edge of winter as they all were…

“Oh, don’t thank me,” Orihime said happily. She scooped out a bowl of soup and handed it to Rukia. “I couldn’t just leave you there. That would have been horrible—just horrible!”

From the way Orihime talked, Rukia felt like the girl was telling the truth. Was this how she really felt? Like helping other people was a normal thing? Well, for a girl with no village of her own, maybe it made sense. Orihime had no allegiances, except perhaps to her capricious yokai friends. 

But still… Such kindness. Such kindness did not belong in this world. Orihime, if she was real, was a creature far out of place from the rest of reality.

Rukia spooned the soup in her bowl. It was more watery today than yesterday. Was Orihime light on ingredients? Probably, now that she had two mouths to feed.

“Let me help you search for food tomorrow, Orihime,” Rukia offered. “It’s the least I could do to help you. After everything you’ve done.” And it would be a good way for Rukia to get some of her strength back.

“Umm….” Orihime paused and thought for a while. “Well…okay! If you’re feeling up to it!”

Their eyes met again. Rukia wanted to look legitimately grateful, like she genuinely wanted to help. Which she did. 

Now it was Orihime’s turn to blush.

_____________________________________________________________

“First, let me tell you about al the yokai in this forest. Chances are you’ll see some today, and it’s better for all of us if you know beforehand what they’re like.” 

And so, Orihime launched into an elaborate report of all the yokai that lived in the forest. Rukia tried to concentrate on what the other girl was saying, even though she felt herself losing focus on standing—which was her primary goal right now. 

“…and then there’s _Hone Onna;_ she’s a skeleton that likes to appear as a woman every now and then to lure travels into her den. She prefers other women to men, so…” Orihime blushed. “She shouldn’t bother us.”

Rukia stared in disbelief at Orihime. That long list of _tengu, kappa,_ animal-like creatures with arbitrary dispositions, and finally a skeleton lady—surely Orihime had to be making some of this up. 

“Oh look! You’re standing, Rukia-san!” 

Rukia looked down and realized it was true. She had been so distracted by Orihime’s bizarre descriptions she had forgotten how hard standing was. Now, here she was, on her feet like it was nothing. She smiled and nodded once in appreciation. A good start. 

While Rukia took her first steps, Orihime stood by her side protectively. A few times, Rukia stumbled and Orihime needed to catch her. Eventually, with Rukia leaning about a third of her weight on Orihime’s muscular figure, they were able to begin a slow walk. Together, of course, as this was all Rukia was able to do at the moment.

Leaning against Orihime, Rukia caught a face full of the girl’s scent. She smelled like the woods, earthy and crisp, but fresh like flowers even in the cool air. Rukia found that being pressed against Orihime like this was…fine, but humiliating. She wanted to be stronger already, to be able to walk on her own.

“My…apologies, Orihime,” she said quietly, fighting down a blush of shame. Orihime was rather stronger than her in this position. It would have been intimidating, if she did not trust the other girl as much as she had decided to. “It seems I’m not yet strong enough…”

“It’s fine, Rukia-san. We can at least go to the river and back.” 

Rukia could feel Orihime’s light voice vibrating through her body as she spoke. She wanted to hold onto the vibrations and keep them inside her body somehow. Something about the steady rhythm of her speech made Rukia feel better, more alive, stronger somehow…

And so, they walked slowly through the den of the trees in the direction of the river. More than once, Rukia caught movement out of the corner of her eye, large and unnatural looking shapes moving through the trees. They made her ill at ease.

“It’s alright,” Orihime said. “They’re just curious.” 

Rukia heard the sound of running water and felt thankful to be near the river at last. As they neared, Ruki felt almost like she could smell the beautiful freshness of a natural spring. It must be a very beautiful one…

And she was not disappointed once they arrived. The river, though slow moving, was clear and untainted. It looked almost untouched by human hands—there was a kind of magical property to the water itself. Rukia’s first instinct was to be in awe of this beautiful spring, but then she felt a tad bit distrustful of it. Surely nothing good could come from magical water…

Suddenly Orihime gasped and tightened her arm around Rukia’s waist. Rukia flinched in response, feeling a strange kind of heat settling in her stomach.

“W-what…?” she stammered.

“Shhhh,” Orihime responded quietly, bending down into a crouch and taking Rukia with her. “Quiet. Look over there.” 

Rukia followed Orihime’s gaze to a spot across the river. She looked slowly, feeling a sense of dread for whatever her friend saw. Sure enough, on the other side of the river—maybe about six feet away from them—was a _tanuki_ lapping up water from the stream. Rukia stopped breathing for a moment as she had never seen a _tanuki_ up close before. 

“Careful…” Orihime warned.

Were _tanuki_ dangerous? Rukia glanced back at Orihime then stared harder at the raccoon dog to make sure what it was…while she watched, the bulky back of the _tanuki_ seemed to stretch and bulge—like there was something underneath the thick fur causing the creature to bloat. It’s yellow, dark-ringed eyes flashed and turned orange like living flame. It’s teeth began to grow long and gnarly…

This creature was a yokai, to be sure.

Rukia held her breath suddenly, afraid to breathe. _Tanuki_ spirits and _mujina…_ these were tricksters and deviants. Everyone knew that. What did this one want from them? Orihime and Rukia had nothing to steal!

“Easy…” Orihime whispered. “Just relax. He senses us, he knows we’re here. But he doesn’t know if he should be afraid of us yet.”

“If he should be afraid of us?” Rukia asked incredulously. “Isn’t it the other way around?”

“No, not yet.” Orihime crept forward toward the river. She walked on her feet but kept her knees bent, close to the ground. She beckoned for Rukia to follow her. Forgetting her own fragility for a moment, Rukia crept alongside her unhindered. 

“What should we do?” Rukia whispered. She wanted to run as far away as possible. This _tanuki_ spirit was growing more rabid by the second, morphing into something that looked more like a wolf than anything.

“Nothing yet,” Orihime answered. “He’s changing his shape into something he thinks might scare us. Don’t be afraid and don’t give him a reason to fear you.”

Rukia stared at the _tanuki_ spirit with purpose. Don’t fear…Rukia would need to master her fear now. Could she do it? Fear was something that ruled her life as a townsperson. Fear ruled them all, fear of nature, fear of winter, fear of the will of the mountain god… She sucked in a deep breath and faced the spirit. 

Somewhere inside her, Rukia felt her soul turning to steel. Cold steel. Icy to the touch. A vision of white flashed through her mind. A woman, surely, now Rukia knew that figure had to be a woman. Unearthly blue eyes—

Yes, Rukia could master her fear. She stared the _tanuki_ in the eyes and kept her face cool, disciplined. The yokai roared, bulging outward in defense of himself.

“My friend!” Orihime cried. “Wait! We mean you no harm!”

Now a ghastly, unrecognizable shape, the _tanuki_ stopped growing for a bit. Suddenly it was very close to the women, either of them could reach out with one hand and touch him. Rukia’s heart leapt in her chest but she remained calm, studying the creature with the same focused blue eyes she saw in her mind.

Seeing how the girls did not react to him, the _tanuki_ began to shrink somewhat.

“My dear raccoon friend,” Orihime kept going. “I’m sorry if we disturbed your morning. We just wanted to come to the river to collect food for ourselves, as we are running short. The mushrooms grow thick here. And we wanted to gather water to keep ourselves from thirst…”

The _tanuki_ shrank further, returning now to his original position on the other side of the river. 

“Please, if there is anything you need from us, know that you can always call on us for help. We respect the forest as your home.” 

The yokai looked almost like a regular raccoon dog now. He blinked and the fire in his eyes died down to its natural yellow. He licked his snout and shook his fur, as if shaking off whatever had just happened. Studiously, Orihime approached the river and began collecting water in the pail. Rukia followed her lead and picked some stray mushrooms out of the ground. They needed to prove their sincerity. 

“Hmmph,” came a voice from the other side of the river. Rukia stared at the _tanuki_ in disbelief. Looking her right in the eyes, the raccoon said, “I believe you.”

With a flourish of his tail, the animal turned and scampered off into the woods. In his wake, he left a large palm leaf with a small pile of shelled nuts. 

“Look!” Orihime dashed across the river, heedless of how cold the water must be. She reached the leaf and examined the nuts closely. “These are freshly peeled nuts! We can eat these for dinner! They’ll be nice in a soup.” 

Rukia blinked and smiled on one side of her face. She had done it; mastered her fear enough to let the _tanuki_ trust them. Not only that, the creature had given them a gift of thanks! Unbelievable. 

“Thank you,” Rukia whispered. She was talking now to the woman in her mind’s eye. Whoever she was, that woman’s strength—known only from the way she bore herself—had helped Rukia. She was grateful for it.

On the other side of the river, Orihime turned to the woods and shouted into the trees, “Thank you, raccoon friend! It was a pleasure to meet you!”

As they walked back that night, Rukia found she was actually able to walk on her own. Orihime smiled and hummed happily the whole way. Ridiculously proud of herself to have befriended a yokai on her first try, and to be walking like a human again, Rukia felt herself beaming. Perhaps finally she could prove to Orihime that she was not worthless.

They smiled at each other. A calm smile that showed something had passed between them. Some kind of understanding. At least in the moment. 

____________________________________________________

They ate nicely that night, filling up on nuts for some much needed protein. Orihime ate the nuts like she had not seen food in ages, while Rukia nibbled the nuts slowly, wanting to savor every small bit of the glorious food. How long had it been since she had tasted something so delicious…?

She stuffed some in her pocket secretly, planning to give some to Renji when she saw him next. Only then did she remember that Renji might be dead… For the first time since she had been there, Rukia felt overwhelmed by sadness. 

Why? Why did things have to turn out like this? Her village’s fate in peril, Renji’s status unknown, Rukia wounded and taking shelter in a yokai-ridden forest. Why this? She buried her face in her hand and bit the soft skin against her thumb to stifle a sob.

“Rukia-san?” 

Looking through the crack in her fingers, Rukia saw Orihime staring over at her with a concerned look. The girl had been picking pieces of nuts out of her teeth, but her hands stilled and left her mouth slowly once she laid eyes on Rukia. 

Of course Orihime would notice, Rukia thought. It was far from private here for the two of them, gathered around the fire. She curled her legs upward and rested her arms and face on her knees. Sitting there like that, she was able to hide her face as much as possible.

“It’s nothing,” she lied. She knew Orihime would not believe that, but she hoped the other girl would take it as a sign that she did not want to talk.

Orihime rinsed her mouth with water and they sat in silence for a moment. Then she crawled over to Rukia and sat down next to the younger girl in the dark. 

“You know,” Orihime began. “I still haven’t asked you what you brought you to the forest that day, as hurt as you were. It looked like you were running from something. But I have no idea how you made it that far with a wound like that…still, I won’t ask if you don’t want to talk about it.”

“…Thanks,” Rukia muttered. Now hopefully they could go on in silence—

“But I just want to know,” Orihime continued. Rukia sighed and accepted whatever question Orihime was going to ask. “Who is Renji? You said that name so many times. Is he your…family?”

Closing her eyes, Rukia conjured a picture of Renji in her mind. How to describe the man? Did she even want to go into it? Well, she reasoned, she and Orihime had become closer today. Now there was no doubt in Rukia’s mind that Orihime was a purely good person. She had to be. There was no lie in her eyes, no guard in her heavy step. No subterfuge in her indecently clothed body, either. Orihime was a creature of unadulterated goodness. 

“Renji is…” Rukia began, looking into the fire. Her sadness and regret cut into her like a knife. “Renji is the closest thing to family I have. We grew up together in a mountain village. Both our parents died young, so…we were always together.”

Slowly, Rukia explained the events that had led her and Renji to the road that day. By the time she got to the bandits, Rukia wanted to scream in frustration. And anger. Hot pulsing anger that those bandits had felt it necessary to attack her and Renji, out of all the people in the world…

She described their attack in surprisingly vivid detail. As she said the words, it felt almost like she was reliving the events themselves.

“I don’t know why,” Rukia said slowly, finally at the end. “I don’t know why I left him. I shouldn’t have. Now he’s probably dead and I’m the one who’s still alive. How is that fair?” 

She looked at Orihime with tears in her eyes. Ashamed suddenly, of her cowardice at running away in a crucial moment, and of her tears, Rukia dropped her head onto her arms.

Orihime scooted slightly closer to her. “I’m sorry all of that happened to you, Rukia. But, just think, you don’t know what happened to Renji. He might still be alive.”

“He might be…” Rukia admitted. “But even if he is, he needs me. My village needs me. But I’m still here. Too weak to leave…I feel so guilty, so useless…”

“You’re not useless, Rukia,” Orihime urged. She put a hand on Rukia’s shoulder. The other girl relaxed almost reflexively at the touch, remembering the soft life-giving warmth of those hands with a kind of visceral reaction. She sighed despite herself. “You survived. That’s all you can do, sometimes.” 

“Survival…” Rukia repeated. “Is that worth Renji’s life?”

“No, you don’t understand,” Orihime answered. “Survival doesn’t come at a cost or with a price. Survival is just all there is. In life, there is only living. When you’re not surviving, you’re already dead. Do you see?”

Rukia looked back at Orihime curiously. She supposed that was in a sense true, surviving was an indelible part of living. But as for the cost, Rukia felt like every breath she took was paid for by Renji’s selflessness. By Orihime’s kindness.

“Living is…” Orihime sighed, trying to explain as she saw the question on Rukia’s face. “Living is hard, Rukia-san. But that doesn’t make it any less valuable. We are both so lucky to be alive. I wish…well, I want you to cherish your life instead of feeling like you don’t deserve to be alive.” 

Raising her head, Rukia felt a burning question working its way out of her throat. She could not hold back from asking it any longer. “Orihime, how did you get here?”

The girl looked up at the clear night sky. “You know I trust you, Rukia-san. So I’ll tell you.” 

She sighed. “Yokai always made themselves known to me, ever since I was little. I could see them all the time, even when other people could not. They were drawn to me, just like I was drawn to them. It…made trouble for my village. Some of the more errant, unfriendly yokai were violent and…some people died. Including my parents.

“We were outcasts after that, my brother and me. On the road, my brother took care of me until I was old enough to fend for myself. He…died near here, killed by bandits actually. I was reminded of him when you talked about Renji. They sound similar.”

Orihime smiled sadly and looked back at Rukia. “I was…done with people after that. I came to live in this forest, deciding to be part of the woods with the rest of the spirits. To me, that’s survival. Living alone so that my powers don’t accidentally cause people to get hurt, and keeping myself as far away from the bad humans as possible. It’s a good balance.”

“But…” Rukia asked, feeling like she could not totally believe Orihime’s assurances. “Don’t you get lonely?”

“Of course not!” Orihime sat up and gestured to the trees. “My friends keep me company! They have been there for me ever since I came to the forest. They are the ones keeping it a nice temperature in here—have you noticed? Shun’o is in charge of filtering the seasonal temperatures in this forest so everything stays habitable. Otherwise I probably would have died in the winter years ago…”

Well, that explained a lot. Suddenly the unseasonable warmth of the forest seemed eerier than it had at first. But, Rukia knew the Shun’o was a kindly spirit. If this warmth was keeping them alive (and it was) then Rukia would be grateful to him. 

“So you…” Rukia had something else she wanted to ask but she did not know how to go about saying it. “So you’ve…been with the yokai a long time. Am I the first person you’ve seen in a while?”

Orihime stopped her a second as she considered this. “Yes,” she said eventually. “I guess you are. But, it’s weird Rukia. I don’t see you as strictly a person. You know what I mean?”

The other woman gaped at how offensive that sounded. 

“Sorry, sorry!” Orihime waved her arms frantically, trying to walk that back. “No, that’s not what I meant! Umm, you see…” She searched for the words awkwardly. “What I meant was…there’s something about you. And you can see the yokai as clearly as I can most of the time. It’s like…well, I don’t know really. I can’t say. But I’m comfortable around you Rukia. I know that much.”

It took the other girl a long time to work through Orihime’s words. She considered them in silence for a while, staying up long after Orihime fell asleep.

________________________________________________________

They passed the days amicably. Rukia regained her strength little by little. Every day she travelled farther through the forest, testing her own limits. Needless to say, she and Orihime ran into several more yokai. Some of them already knew of Orihime and were excited to meet Rukia, a new face in the forest. Some were too shy to approach. Other put on a show similar to the _tanuki’s,_ defending themselves through trickery. 

But, Rukia found her initial fear and dislike of yokai to be slowly disappearing. In many ways, the yokai lived by more concrete rules than humans did. Because they did not need to worry about day to day survival, they were free to do as they pleased. It was a peaceful existence, Rukia realized. She appreciated the kindness of the yokai who were willing to give it.

The time came when Rukia was able to travel to the edge of the forest, to the place where Orihime had first found her. Baigon, the burly fairy in Orihime’s party,pointed out the spot wordlessly by picking up Rukia’s torn _mino_ from underneath the brush. Rukia was shocked to see how much blood had soaked through the straw…her own blood…

Swallowing her disgust, Rukia turned her face towards the road. She was sure that was the road she and Renji had been traveling on. That was where…

“I guess you were coming from that direction,” Orihime said. “There is a road down that way.”

“I know,” Rukia replied. She turned her head downward, unable to say anything else. 

Her heart ached and her mind reeled as she saw this spot again. She remembered crawling here, near death, hoping only for the cover of trees to keep her alive. She remembered the inhuman sound of metal against metal as Renji tried to fight off the rest of the bandits. This was her fate. She needed to go back there in order to find out what had happened to Renji.

Orihime came up behind Rukia and put her hand on the other girl’s shoulder. “You don’t have to go today, Rukia. You can go tomorrow. We…we’ll get ready tonight.”

Wordlessly, Rukia nodded in agreement. One more night to get herself together. They went back to the den of trees where Orihime lived and passed the rest of the day in silence. Orihime, for her part, seemed to be particularly quiet—as if she were considering something she could not yet give words to.

“Well!” Orihime said brightly after it had turned dark. “I’m going to the hot spring. Been a while since I had a good bath. Care to join me?”

Rukia looked up at her friend in confusion. There was…a hot spring here? All this time? Then why didn’t they ever… Well, no time for questions like that. Orihime had her own ways of doing things, inscrutable to anyone but herself. 

A bath sounded nice, though. “Sure, let’s go.” 

Orihime led them through another thick grove of trees. They had never gone this way before. Because it was already night, some shadowy yokai slunk around underneath the trees, making way for the pair of girls once Orihime showed them a handful of her barrier light. 

It was strange, Rukia thought, how safe she felt around Orihime. The girl’s unnatural powers and kindness…Rukia knew Orihime would never to do anything to hurt her, would only ever try to help her.

That knowledge made Rukia’s chest ache with appreciation. She cared for Orihime, this bizarre girl. It would be painful to leave her after all the time they had spent together, surviving in the forest…

“Here we are!” Orihime called. 

Sure enough, they had arrived at a still spring bathed in moonlight. Rukia felt like she could hear crickets (out of season) chirping contentedly in the background. Furthermore, there was a smattering of fireflies flashing brightly in the moon-soaked night air. Out of habit now, Rukia looked closely to see if they were really fireflies or perhaps some type of yokai. Maybe they were a little too yellow, but, she could not tell one way or the other. Oh well.

“Pretty…” Rukia whispered, in spite of herself. 

“Yes. This is one of my favorite places in the forest.” Orihime stepped toward the water. She dipped in a single toe and shivered in response. Rukia could see where the other girl’s body shook underneath her clothes, a very real reaction.

“Ooh…” Orihime cried. “The water is perfect! It feels great, Rukia-san. Let’s go in!”

Without saying anything else, Orihime unwrapped her threadbare yukata and tossed it to the ground. Rukia gasped and turned her head away on instinct. She was still not comfortable around the stark reality of Orihime’s body…

Even though she could not say why…

Orihime jumped gleefully into the spring. She splashed around happily for a bit before going to sit against the rock in calm appreciation for the natural beauty of the spring. She stretched her hands upward and started lathering water all over her shoulders and arms.

“Too bad we don’t have any soap…” Orihime said sadly. “I usually use aloe leaves instead of regular soap, but lately I haven't been able to find any.” She glanced up at Rukia, who was staring fixedly at the lapping surface of the spring. “Are you coming in, Rukia-san?”

“I…” Rukia blushed and stepped forward. Why was this so awkward now? “Uh, yes.”

No. Rukia had been in the bath was dozens of naked women before. It was never awkward then. Maybe it was because Orihime had such large breasts and Rukia’s own were barely any larger than two bumps on a log. Was she embarrassed to show herself to this girl? Yet, she knew that Orihime had already seen most of her body when she was healing her. She had wrapped and unwrapped Rukia’s _kosode_ many times to get to her back.

In truth, Orihime had already seen most of Rukia’s bare form. So then, why was she feeling so uncomfortable?

This was ridiculous. Stuffing down her emotions, Rukia untied her _shihakusho_ and folded it carefully on the rock alongside Orihime’s clothes. She loosed her _juban,_ feeling ashamed at how dirty the normally white cloth had become. As her _juban_ pooled around her feet, Rukia held her hands in front of her still-wrapped breasts and uncovered private part. Slowly, she toed into the water.

Indeed the water was so warm and glorious, Rukia sighed when it touched her skin. She forgot to cover herself and closed her eyes as her modest hands fell to her side.

Orihime watched Rukia with curiosity. “Do you…aren’t you uncomfortable with those wrappings on your chest?”

“Uh, no,” Rukia replied, going to sit and luxuriate against a rock, opposite of Orihime’s. “I’m quite used to wearing this.” 

“Hmmm…” Orihime said. She swam over to Rukia’s side. The other girl studiously avoided watching her, instead keeping her eyes closed and focusing on the comfort of the water. “Let me see it.”

“Umm, what?”

Orihime was now next to Rukia, slowly untying the cloth wrappings on her breasts. She ran her hands around and around Rukia’s chest, gathering the cloth without any concern for Rukia’s objections.

“O-ori-h-hime!” Rukia choked out, trying to still the other girl’s hands. She was unsuccessful. “Don’t just…don’t do that…”

But before she knew it, Orihime had already removed all of the bandages, leaving Rukia completely naked in the water. She blushed furiously and covered her breasts with her hands. 

Orihime meanwhile was inspecting the cloth strips like they were some unknown oddity. “I used to see women wearing these on their chests,” the young woman said curiously. “What are they for?”

“They’re…” Rukia inched away from Orihime in the water. “They’re for modesty! And convenience. It’s not right to have your…chest hanging out all the time. It’s too weird.”

“Weird?” Orihime placed the bandages outside the water on the rock’s ledge. “Well, I’ve never worn them. So…am I weird, Rukia-san?”

“You…” Rukia choked on her own words. Her hands faltered for a moment and some bath water lapped underneath her palm. It washed against her breasts, making her nipples harden sensitively. The warm water felt glorious against her there, but when it fell away her nipples were left exposed to the cold night air, making them uncomfortably hard. Rukia dipped her whole body in the water to avoid the strange feeling, covering herself in water.

“It’s okay, Rukia-san,” Orihime said brightly. “You don’t have to answer that. I know I’m…different. I always have been.” She chuckled. “I mean, look at me! Look at how I live…”

Rukia stared over at her friend, feeling uncertain suddenly. Orihime seemed sad, and it was not too hard to see why. The girl had left behind her humanity for the sake of survival. If there ever was a cost to living, relinquishing all ties to your own species had to be up there.

“Orihime,” Rukia said softly. She turned to her friend and reached out a hand hesitantly. She wanted to touch her on the shoulder, but she was not sure if that would be too bold. “You’re…different. But you’re also the kindest person I’ve ever met. Please, believe me when I say that.”

The orange-haired girl blinked at looked back at Rukia. “You…” she said, her large brown eyes filling with tears. “You think I’m…kind?”

“Yes, of course!” Rukia shifted in the water to face her friend fully. “How could you be anything else, Orihime? You saved my life! You cared for me like someone from my family would…And you didn’t even ask for anything in return…”

Orihime took a deep breath. “Back in my village,” she began, wiping some tears from her eyes. “Well, back in my village everyone used to think I was evil. They thought a demon had been reborn inside of me and that’s why yokai followed me around. I guess…well, I believed them. I tried to make contact with the demon inside me but I never found him. Eventually I just decided that whatever evil there was in me had to be inbred in my body itself, not in the form of a demon, but in the form of…whatever it is I am.” 

“No.” Rukia put both hands on either one of her friend’s shoulders. “You are not evil, Orihime. You are…good. In fact, you are too good for this world, too good for these times. If your village doesn’t understand you, then…perhaps it’s better that you left.”

Of course all of these words were crazy. Leaving your village behind? Abandoning everything you knew? These were unheard of things, but…Rukia did not need to think twice. Anyone who thought Orihime was evil needed to be out of this girl’s life. That much she knew in her very bones. Orihime had no use for people who could not see her beauty, her light.

Orihime put a hand over Rukia’s. “Thank you, Rukia-san,” she said quietly. “For saying that. Actually, I…well, can I be honest with you?”

“Of course.”

“Rukia-san, you…” Orihime took a deep breath and looked back at the other girl with big eyes shining with unshed tears. “You are my first human friend. I’ve never…met anyone like you who was so unafraid of me, of what I can do. So I…” Her chin dropped down, hiding her face from Rukia. “…Thank you, Rukia-san…”

The black-haired girl heard her friend crying. She put her finger on the girl’s chin and slowly lifted her face. Tears streamed down Orihime’s face, redness had seeped into her delicate nose and cheeks. She looked a mess. Without thinking, Rukia stroked Orihime’s face, pushing away any loose strands of orange hair sticking to her. 

“You’re so beautiful, Orihime,” Rukia said softly. Her very soul ached as she saw and felt Orihime’s pain, knowing the loneliness of this girl’s life. A life unaccepted by the rest of her kind. Everything was sad now, such was the sheer intensity of Orihime’s sadness, but, at the same time…Rukia wanted to preserve this girl’s beauty with her own hands. She wanted to make Orihime feel as wonderful as she deserved to be.

“Rukia-san…” Orihime whispered.

They would never know who started it first, but then they were kissing. Their lips met softly but with great urgency. Rukia kissed Orihime hard, wanting the other girl to feel how much she appreciated her for what she was—everything that she was. Orihime kissed back, surrendering to Rukia’s will, exploring the other girl’s mouth with her own.

Time seemed to stop as they kissed. For a moment, there was nothing else, no other world outside this swath of moonlight and warm water and heartfelt friendship. Rukia wanted dearly for that to be the case.

Then…

Rukia pulled away first. There was a nagging thought in the back of her mind that this was wrong, that she should not be kissing another girl (a girl with supernatural powers at the very least) in the middle of a yokai forest. This world was not her world; her world resided in the mountains to the east. Where people depended on her to come back.

So, she pulled away and rested her forehead against Orihime’s as the girls slowly caught their breath. Everything moved in drenched, sluggish time. Rukia turned away from Orihime and stood up. 

“I’m…” she said shakily, searching for her _juban._ “I’m sorry…”

How could she explain herself? Orihime must be feeling violated at being kissed like that…even though, Rukia tried to search her memory for who exactly it was that had initiated the kiss. It had to have been her, Rukia herself, who had been harboring some…unchaste feelings for Orihime since she met her. As shameful as that was to admit.

“No, it’s…alright.” Orihime was looking to the side, holding her hands against her cheeks. Her face was bright red and her eyes looked rather conflicted. Her chest heaved up and down as she tried to collect herself. “…Rukia-san…” she whispered, touching her own lips lightly in remembrance. 

But Rukia did not see any of that. She found her _juban_ and wrapped it around her wet body with haste. Shoving on the rest of her _kosode,_ Rukia took a few steps away from the pool. 

“I’m…heading back, Orihime. Take your time with the rest of your bath. I’ll…meet you by the fire.” Rukia knew the way back. This forest’s twists and turns had started to look familiar to her a while ago. On hurried feet, without waiting for an answer from Orihime, she scurried back to their camp.

Finding their den with ease, Rukia laid down next to the fire and curled in on herself. She held her hands over her ears, hating the way blood pounded in her head, the way her mind clung to the memory of Orihime’s lips on her own. She shifted her feet, feeling the throbbing between her legs that had not subsided in the least. Her skin quivered, mind racing as she thought what it would be like to wrapped in Orihime’s sweet embrace. She wanted the other girl’s touch so badly it made her eyes fill with tears. 

Why…she thought sadly. Why was she like this? 

Rukia knew she had never desired the company of men. Everyone in the village just naturally assumed she and Renji would end up married some day. Rukia even assumed this herself. But she harbored no romantic feelings for her friend that way. Even as they grew up and changed into a young man and woman, Rukia felt unmoved by him. Once—just once—they had experimented with kissing. Renji’s lips tasted like rice gruel, chapped and harsh against her own. Rukia had pulled away in confusion and dislike, while Renji felt much the same. He said it felt wrong, like kissing his sister.

There was no sort of romance between them. Renji and Rukia both knew that.

Beyond that, Rukia had always been…more moved by other women. She remembered an older girl in their village offering to brush Rukia’s hair one day. She had agreed, thinking nothing of it. But while the girl combed her short black locks, Rukia felt something inside her stirring to life. The other girl’s fingers set Rukia’s scalp to tingling and the tingling spread all over her body. Eventually, Rukia had been forced to leave abruptly, or else risk sighing under the other girl’s touch embarrassingly.

Did that mean…?

Rukia held a hand against her chest, trying to make the heat between her legs die down. At least a little, so she could try to fall asleep. Rukia was no stranger to touching herself, she had touched herself for years afterward thinking about that older girl’s fingers in her hair…but now, she could not risk doing so here, so close to where Orihime already was.

Rukia hated to think that she had offended Orihime by kissing her. Had she ruined everything between them, all the true friendship? Tears streamed down Rukia’s face as she realized that surely she must have ruined everything. Why would Orihime stand to be touched like that? She must have been confused, hurt…Rukia cursed herself for her lack of control.

Although, perhaps she was already cursed. By this…unnatural predilection.

____________________________________________________________ 

Rukia knew she was asleep. This was not regular reality. This was the headspace where…well, it was where she had met the other woman.

_“Rukia.”_

She heard her name being called by a deep voice. But that was not a real voice, instead it was some other facet of her mind, probably. Something generated by her own body.

“Where are you?” Rukia asked nonetheless. Perhaps here, in this head space, she could finally talk to this strange woman. “I hear you but I can’t see you.”

_“Rukia. I’m right here.”_

She blinked and suddenly—there she was. The woman in white. White skin, blue eyes, white hair (but not old, in fact rather young, Rukia’s own age), and a _furisode_ as pure and pristine, as flowing and beautiful as Rukia knew she would find on this woman.

“I…there you are,” Rukia said stupidly. In the presence of this woman, everything felt…strangely cold. There was a small fluttering of snowflakes drifting back and forth between Rukia and this other woman, almost an afterthought as the air became dry and crisp like it was in winter.

The woman frowned. _“I’ve been here a while now.”_

“I know.” Rukia did not know what else to say. 

_“I’m not going anywhere, either.”_

The woman had a katana sheathed at her side, with a long white ribbon dangling from the hilt. Rukia noticed it for the first time and stared at it in awe. A woman with a katana? What was this person’s power? 

“Who…are you?” Rukia asked.

_“Don’t you know my name?”_ The woman took a few steps towards Rukia. There was a thin layer of snow covering the ground now, and her footsteps made no sound as she walked. 

“I…don’t…” Rukia admitted. 

_“Think hard.”_

So, Rukia followed the woman’s advice and thought hard about what her name might be. They had met before, many times by now, why couldn’t she remember her name? 

The white woman was so near to Rukia now, they were face to face and almost touching. Rukia felt like she was looking inside some type of bizarre mirror. Everything about this woman was familiar and yet…not, at the same time. She had never seen her so clearly before. And oh, how wonderful it was to be so near this woman. She was beautiful in a way Rukia could not even begin to describe—unearthly and glorious. Rukia wanted to be just like her…She wanted all of her.

_“I know everything you want,”_ the woman said bluntly. She spread her hands wide and suddenly Rukia was wearing nothing. Had she ever been wearing clothing? Unclear now. _“You want that girl. And you want me.”_

“I…don’t know what I want…” Rukia said in confusion, reaching out to brace herself against the thick white sleeves of the woman’s _furisode._

_“I do,”_ the woman said. She smiled in a curious way. It looked like smiling was painful to her in a way, like her taught skin could barely allow the movement. _“So let me show you then.”_

In a rush of cold wind and frost skin against her own, this woman was touching her all over and kissing her hard on the mouth. Even in the cold, which was supposed to be naturally killing, Rukia felt her body come to life. She wrapped her arms around the woman, holding on tight to the back collar of her modest-necked _furisode._ The woman ran her hands along Rukia’s back, trailing them down across Rukia’s spine to curve around her buttocks, sending shivers around the supple skin there. The cold seemed to penetrate Rukia from behind in that way…

Then the woman hooked her hand underneath Rukia’s thigh, forcing her to wrap her leg around her waist. Rukia moaned at the contact, feeling her burning core brush against the woman’s clothed body. Her cunt was wet, dripping now, Rukia knew. And that wetness now stained this woman’s _furisode…._

“Ah…” Rukia moaned as the woman pushed Rukia’s body back and forth, forcing her to rock her hips against her cold figure. Every time her wet cunt met this woman’s body, Rukia felt unearthly cold seeping into her entrance…filling her with an impossibly wonderful feeling, like being filled by cold breeze with a mind of its own. Why did that feel good? Rukia thought vaguely. It shouldn’t…

_“Yes, hold onto me,”_ the woman said. _“Move your body against mine however you like…”_

Rukia wanted the other woman to touch where she burned, where her entrance quivered with the want to feel this woman’s fingers, or any part of her. 

“Please…” Rukia whispered, kissing the woman’s blisteringly cold face and neck, feeling her soul resonate in response. “Please touch me…”

She grabbed the woman’s hand and guided it to her center, running the woman’s fingers across her dripping wet curls of hair, trying to push them past the folds of her labia into her needy core—

But the woman took charge on her own. She wiggled out of Rukia’s grasp and held two fingers against Rukia’s twitching clit. Rukia screamed in response, her vision going white as she withstood the pleasure. Already she felt herself ready to climax, clenching and releasing with mounting pleasure as the woman kept her fingers agonizingly still, pressing hard against the bundle of nerves Rukia felt the most…

_“My Rukia,”_ the woman said. _“So responsive to me. Don’t you remember my name now?”_

Painfully slowly, the woman began moving her fingers against Rukia, rubbing her clit ever so lightly. Rukia felt her release building, she had already started, all she needed was more of those perfect, cold fingers to rub her, just a little more…

“Sode no Shirayuki,” Rukia said suddenly. She remembered the name now.

The woman, Sode no Shirayuki, smiled brightly. It seemed more natural on her now. _“Yes,”_ she said happily. 

And then she was gone, evaporated. Rukia awoke to the darkness of the forest, still right on the edge of orgasm. That—all that was a dream? She glanced around frantically. Orihime lay curled up by the dying fire, already asleep. The moon shown overhead. Yes this was regular reality.

But then why… Rukia looked down between her legs and saw that she had soaked through her _juban_ in her intense arousal. That had all felt so real. And her clit and her needy entrance still smarted, aching to be satisfied.

Forgetting everything, Rukia opened her _kosode,_ pushed past her _juban,_ and touched herself. She gasped, honestly surprised at the sheer amount of wetness she found there. But as she rubbed herself Rukia felt her dream-arousal slipping away. Her touch was nothing at all like Sode no Shirayuki’s and it would not work. The more she touched, the less she felt.

Pure frustration filled Rukia’s veins as she realized there was no way she could get off now. She clicked her teeth in anger and rolled over onto her stomach.

Damn, what a bizarre dream. Such strange thoughts. Was this woman real? She appeared to Rukia so frequently now. Sode no Shirayuki. Now at least she had a name. And surely, she thought, they would meet again.

But what did this woman, this creature really, want with her? What was she and what could she possibly hope to gain by tormenting Rukia in such a way?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have so much love for Rukia. And Sode no Shirayuki is the most beautiful of the zanpakuto spirits, I mean that's even canon at this point.


	3. Pure White

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is wider than just one forest. Rukia and Orihime both know this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kuma - a bear . Kuma-san is basically like saying “Mr. Bear” or what someone like Orihime would call a regular bear.  
> kotodama 言霊- a mantra or incantation. Generally, kotodama refers to the Japanese animistic belief in the strong spiritual power of words.  
> tsuba - the hilt of a katana.  
> futakuchi-onna - a type of human yokai; a woman with a voracious extra mouth on the back of her head  
> rokuro-kubi - another type of human yokai; able to elongate their necks during the night
> 
> Enjoy guys! ;)

**Chapter Three - White**

Orihime frowned as she focused harder on her Souten Kisshun shield. She had laid Rukia’s torn _mino_ on the ground and was in the process of reversing the damage done to it with her barrier. This barrier, she knew, was capable of reversing all the phenomena that occurred on a single object. Some yokai had explained that to her one day…Rather useful. She could heal anything or undo any damage on an inanimate object.

Now she wanted to make this _mino_ like new again. She watched as the yellow glow of her Souten Kisshun forced the individual pieces of straw to reattach themselves. The warmth from that light was making Orihime feel more confident in herself.

She had already made up her mind. Even if her own conviction did…scare her a little. Now that she had decided, there was no going back. 

“Don’t worry, princess,” Shun’o said at her side. “We’ll make sure you stay safe.” 

Of course her friends had offered to go with her. She was still debating whether or not to take them…

“I found this,” Lily said, emerging from somewhere behind her. She had in her hands a long stretch of bear fur. “ _Kuma-san_ gave it to me when I told him what you wanted to do.”

Orihime’s heart melted as she looked at the fur. “Oh, _Kuma-san_ ,” she said, sending out positive energy to wherever her bear friend might be. “You are so kind. I hope your cubs are growing nicely.”

The _mino_ now successfully restored, Orihime let the light of her Souten Kisshun disperse. She took the bear fur and measured it with her eyes. More than enough. Taking a makeshift needle, thread, and wooden clasp (things Orihime had whittled herself, mostly to pass the time), she began sewing the bear fur into a rudimentary winter coat.

She would need it, after all, when she accompanied Rukia on her journey to find Renji. 

Orhime glanced across the campfire (which had long since dwindled to embers) to her sleeping friend. Rukia had fallen asleep with her back to the other girl, curled up in an agitated way. Orihime had found her like that after taking a long walk through the forest. 

She wanted to smile, watching Rukia finally at peace in her sleep. Her side rose up and down as she breathed. Orihime hoped sincerely she was having good dreams… Although, she noticed that sometimes, when Rukia slept, the forest seemed to grow colder. Also, Rukia would breathe out little tendrils of frosty air where she slept. Strange. Orihime had her own theories about it. At this point she was almost certain she was correct in her thinking, but the girl would not mention anything until she thought Rukia would be comfortable hearing her thoughts. 

Which, after what happened last night, Orihime was not certain would ever happen now.

She closed her eyes in guilt, thinking back to the hot spring. At the time, the only thing Orihime had meant to confess was the way she felt so grateful to Rukia for being the only understanding human Orihime had ever met. In Rukia’s knowing eyes, Orihime had long since begun to build a home for herself…she knew that the black-haired girl was trustworthy and good. So did all the yokai of the forest. She…

Well, that was the thing Orihime had not meant to reveal. 

In truth, Orihime could not bear the thought of being separated from Rukia forever. She had tried to stave off Rukia’s departure in her heart, telling herself there was always one more day left between them. But then the day came when Orihime knew her friend was leaving. Never to return.

Orihime had been an emotional mess long before she even stepped foot in the bath. Still, being that close to Rukia, seeing how shy and utterly beautiful her friend was…Orihime felt like she was falling apart. That was why she had started crying, confessing to unasked-for things, spilling her soul. 

And when Rukia held her face between her hands, Orihime knew she would never be the same. No one had ever shown her such sympathy and kindness, not since her brother died. She was completely taken aback at the way Rukia looked at her, like Orihime was something worthwhile, something to be comforted…

So that was why Orihime leaned forward and kissed Rukia. It had felt like the most natural thing in the world. Looking back, Orihime actually thought maybe Rukia started the kiss. Had she? The moment was too brief to remember.

But afterwards it became clear. Rukia broke away and left Orihime there, clearly uncomfortable, clearly wishing the kiss had never happened. So. Rukia regretted it and now everything was awful. Orihime blamed herself, of course Rukia would feel betrayed and confused…after being kissed by some yokai girl, who wouldn’t be? 

Orihime cried for a while, sitting alone in the hot spring. She knew she loved Rukia, that much had been obvious to her for a while now, but she also knew there was no way Rukia felt the same. Orihime had needed to go on a long walk into the deeper parts of the forest to calm herself. While she walked, she did some thinking. She stood next to a thick oak tree, the tree that had sheltered her when she was a child first taking refuge in this forest. 

As she laid her palm against the sturdy tree trunk, she vividly remembered the feeling of being an outcast. Of being alone. Orihime had pushed all those feelings deep down inside of herself to be able to survive, but now she remembered all of it with full force.

The reality was, Orihime had been living alone for years. Her yokai friends did what they could to keep her happy, and she was beyond grateful to all of them (indeed, they had saved her life), but in truth Orihime knew she was not a yokai. She would grow old and die one day—something the other yokai knew nothing about. She had a strong visceral need to be with other humans sometimes, people who bled and felt the way she did. This self-imposed exile she had put upon herself took its toll. 

Sometimes. Only sometimes, she told herself.

If Rukia left, nothing would change. Orihime would keep on growing as one of the forest until she was an old lady. She would live out the rest of her life here. No one outside the forest would even know the difference.

And yet, ever since Rukia had appeared in her life (staggering and bleeding to death as she was, at the time), Orihime found herself wanting something more. It had taken her a while to figure out what that was, but now it was clear. 

She wanted to see what else was out there.

Even if Rukia hated her for the kiss, Orihime needed to take the chance to offer her company to the other girl. She could leave and be with someone who knew how other humans acted (Orihime would admit she was a little rusty on that front). She would have a chance to find out if there was some other way to live than what she had in the forest.

And if she failed, if the world outside was as wretched as she remembered or if Rukia declined her offer, then she would always have the forest to fall back on. This place was her safety net. She could always stay here. She could always come back.

So Orihime made up her mind to accompany Rukia outside. She had started working on the _mino_ right away, telling her friends what she planned. The fairies, for their part, seemed more than happy with her decision. Ah, Orihime thought. She could never leave them behind. They were absolutely coming with her!

Now the sun was starting to rise. A little patch of sunlight fell onto the ground near Rukia’s head. As if startled by the sudden warmth, Rukia began to stir in her sleep. 

Groggily, the other girl twisted and turned until her eyes opened on their own. Rukia’s first memory was of her dream, of Sode no Shirayuki staring at her impassively. When she saw that she was still in the forest, she began to sit up, remembering her decision to leave and search for Renji that day…

Her eyes slid to Orihime. She remembered the bath, in full clarity now. The birds chirping in the trees cut through the thick silence between the two girls, making Rukia’s ears burn. Orihime was not looking at her. Not that she expected her to… but then, what was the wild girl doing? She was sewing together what looked to be a thick pelt. 

“Good morning,” Orihime said casually, smiling so hard her eyes closed. 

“Um…” Rukia swallowed. She forced her body into a tight, formal sitting position, facing Orihime. “Good morning, Orihime.”

“Sleep well?” the girl asked.

How could Rukia say that she dreamed she had been fucked by a snow spirit? Instead, she just said, “Yes, thank you.” 

“Look what I did!” Orihime was still speaking in overly-bright tones, but she had not quite made eye contact with Rukia yet. She held up Rukia’s old _mino,_ which now looked as good as new.

Rukia was startled for a moment, unable to believe her eyes. It looked like it had it was first made—newer even than when she had set out from the village, with no trace of a stitch in it! “H…how did you do that?” she asked.

“Oh, it’s all part of my powers,” Orihime explained. “I can undo anything that happens to a certain object. It’s how I healed you too, Rukia-san. Didn’t you know?”

“I mean, I…” Rukia began, glancing away. She was not quite sure she understood, but she also did not want to ask questions. “I knew you had healing powers, but I guess I never thought about how they actually worked…”

Orihime giggled, forcing the sound out around her nerves. There was definitely something different in the air between them. A kind of hyperaware anxiety. But Orihime would play act at normalcy until it became a reality. 

“Yup! That’s how it works.” She put down the _mino_ and held up the bear-fur coat. “And I’m making this as well. Do you like it?”

“Ah, well,” Rukia was downright confused now. “It’s…lovely, Orihime. But…why are you doing all this?”

“Don’t you remember?” Orihime flashed another toothy smile. “Today is the day we set out to find Renji!”

Rukia’s jaw dropped. She felt her skin prick in nervousness. “Umm… ‘we’?” 

“That’s right, I’m coming with you!” Orihime shook out the bear fur and measured it against her own body one more time, not stopping her work for a second. “I decided last night.” 

“You’re…what?” Rukia hated the way she did not seem to able to articulate herself today. Her mind moved sluggishly, still overwhelmed with the business of keeping her heart and her desire in check as she stared fixedly at Orihime. 

(And oh yes, her desire from the night before had not abated at all. Orihime seemed to look especially beautiful today, now that Rukia knew what those beautiful lips tasted like…a spike of arousal between her legs forced her to work hard to forget the feeling.) 

“I said I’m coming with you, Rukia-san.” Now Orihime set down her needle and thread, turning to face Rukia. They each held back a gasp as their eyes met again. “I…gave it some thought and I…I think it’s time I left the forest. Plus, it might be dangerous out there and I don’t want you to go alone—”

“But Orihime!” Rukia rose up to her knees. “Do you know what that means? I mean, when was the last time you left the forest…?”

“It was…when my brother died.” Orihime turned her face away sadly. “But…don’t you see? That’s why I have to go. I may never work up the nerve to leave again. And I decided last night, I really want to take this chance. I need to see what the real world is like, again. Even if it’s terrible. I just…have to do it. For my own sake. And—”

She was about to say ‘and for yours.’ But she stopped herself, remembering how Rukia had turned away from her. 

Meanwhile, Rukia was looking down at her own hands. She could feel the other girl’s sincerity in her words. Orihime really wanted to do this. And really, who was Rukia to stop her? It was a miracle this girl was even still speaking to her after last night…

And if Rukia were being honest, she had no desire to leave Orihime’s side either…

“Alright.” 

Rukia said it before she had fully settled herself and the word surprised her when she heard it from her own mouth. Well, it looked like this was happening. If there was anything she wanted less, it was to argue with Orihime now.

And human company? Especially Orihime’s? Too wonderful to speak of, really. It wasn’t like they had to talk about what happened the night before. If Orihime was willing to let it pass, then so was Rukia, certainly! Better to just tread on, carefully, then say anything untoward.

They sat in silence while Orihime finished her sewing. They had more than their fair share of thoughts to occupy themselves.

_________________________________________________________

They left at mid afternoon. Orihime tried her best not to take her time saying goodbye to the forest, but as she and Rukia walked through the trees (studiously making sure they had no accidental contact between them), Orihime thought again and again about how these trees had sheltered her for most of her life.

Including, of course, Shun’o’s filtering of the natural elements. 

Orihime had not felt the cold touch of winter since she was a child. She remembered snow and winter as a terrible thing, a time of death…but in Orihime’s view of things, she did kind of miss the beauty of snow. Seeing Rukia string her _mino_ tightly around her body, Orihime began suddenly pining for the view of picturesque, snowy landscape. 

Something about Rukia’s nature brought those images to mind. 

Orihime smiled to herself and wrapped the bear fur coat across her shoulders. They were making their way to the edge of the forest and through the trees the outside world loomed darkly. It was cloudy but bright, the kind of early winter day that hinted at snowfall any moment. 

“Are you sure about this, princess?” Shun’o was in Orihime’s ear now. “I won’t be able to regulate the temperature out there and it looks cold.”

“Yes, Shun’o, thank you,” Orihime said, as she watched Rukia silently step out of the forest into the dry air. The thin woman slid further into her straw coat, shivering once before turning back to Orihime with a serious look.

“Ok…” Shun’o said, shrinking into the folds of Orihime’s bear fur coat. “Just stay wrapped up and I’ll try to keep you as toasty as I can from here.” 

Nodding, Orihime took a deep breath and steeled her will. She had already made up her mind, this was the first big step—literally, even as her newly-socked foot touched the ground just outside the forest—

Cold ground. A little further, and now everything was cold. Orihime’s eyes widened then she wrapped her arms around her waist, desperately trying to keep some of the warmth inside her body. 

Rukia rushed to her friend’s side. “Are you alright, Orihime?” 

Steadying herself, Orihime took a wider step. She adjusted her bear fur coat and looked up with good deal more determination. “Yes,” she replied. “I’m fine. Let’s get to the road and see if we can find any sign of Renji.” 

For some reason, being out the fresh air of reality seemed to have rejuvenated Rukia. She felt calmer now, knowing that everything surrounding her was real (not some sort of yokai magic). And even the brutal slap to the face that was winter made her feel more normal. She knew winter well, after all. She had come into her own during winter when her parents died in a snowy avalanche.

In some ways, winter had always been the time when she was most alive. Fighting for survival, anyway. 

Also, they were on their way to the road where she last saw Renji. It felt just as empty as it had the last time. The horizon was empty of any people. Wind blowing from the west bore the faint smell of smoke. 

Of course, as Rukia expected, all signs of their altercation with the bandits (weeks ago now) were gone. Rukia scanned the dirty road for any footprints, unsure what to do now that her fears and suspicions had been proven true. The muddy pockets along the road had begun to freeze over. That alone spoke volumes about the time that had passed since the bandits ambushed her and Renji.

“Renji…” Rukia whispered. She looked west and then east. “Where did you go?”

“Any sign?” Orihime asked.

Rukia shook her head. 

_________________________________________________________

After some deliberation, Rukia and Orihime decided to travel east. East was the direction of _Aoi Yama_ after all, and Rukia reasoned that Renji probably had gone back to his village after being injured. If he had been lucky enough to make it through the rough mountain climb to reach home…

But that aside, Rukia wanted to go back to her village and check on them. She cursed herself for going back empty-handed, so she resolved to try and find another village along the way (perhaps on the near foothills of the mountain) where she could barter. Barter with what? Unclear. But maybe her sob story would be enough…

“What is your village like, Rukia-san?” Orihime had bundled herself up, but she seemed more ready to talk now that they were out in the open. 

“It’s…” Rukia did not know how to describe it. She readjusted the bag of their provisions over her shoulder and continued to walk. “It’s a fairly…normal village. My clan leader’s name is Ukitake. He is a kind, though sickly, man. In some ways, I guess you could say he raised Renji and me. Always looking after us and making sure we had somewhere to stay.” 

Orihime’s eyes softened as she imagined this Ukitake person. “That sounds nice…” she said dreamily. 

Needless to say, no one in her village had ever cared for her that way. Her leader had been coarse and unrelenting. It was nice to know some leaders could be good in their own way.

She wanted to look forward to seeing Rukia’s village. If, in fact, Orihime would ever meet them. She was starting to think she might break away from Rukia somewhere in the mountains. After all, a village was no place for a yokai girl like Orihime.

“Look, there,” Rukia said. She pointed down a veer in the path where a tiny orange pinprick signaled a lit fire. A small village resides just down the way. Her and Renji had passed it by at first, knowing it was too small to really yield much profit in the way of trade. 

But now, anything would do.

“A village?” Orihime whispered uncertainly.

“Yeah,” Rukia replied. “We need a place to stay for the night anyway. Can’t camp on the road. Let’s go see if they can offer us some shelter.” And maybe some bags of rice to bring back to _Aoi Yama…_

Orihime was uncertain, but she let Rukia lead the way regardless.

“Won’t there be people there, princess?” Now it was Lily whispering in her ear. “Villagers…?”

This time Orihime stayed silent. She held her mouth in an even line and stared straight ahead. One night in a village among other humans, humans besides Rukia? She could do that. Of course she could! …Right?

As they neared the village, the girls spotted a man with a broom carefully sweeping outward in the direction of the road. He was muttering some _kotodama_ under his breath, clearly performing some kind of ritual.

“Good evening, sir!” Rukia called out. 

The man jumped slightly, startled out of his mantra. He took several steps backwards, clearly afraid.

“Stop, it’s alright!” Rukia ran forward a few steps. “We just need someplace to stay for the night!” 

As she moved closer, the man caught sight of Orhime—of the two of them, Orihime was the one still clearly feminine, even from a great distance. Her bear fur coat did nothing to hide her curvaceous figure, and unlike Rukia she had no hood to hide her face. So the man was shocked out of his own fear the moment he saw a young girl like Orihime out in the cold.

“Wh-who goes there?” he asked unsteadily.

The girls approached on quick feet. “Greetings,” Rukia said, as Orihime shielded herself slightly from the man’s view by standing behind her friend. She had not seen a human man in many years. The memories she had were not pleasant. “My name is Kuchiki and I come from _Aoi Yama_ village in the mountains. Can we trouble you for a place to stay tonight? An empty room, a public tavern, or even a spare shed would be fine, as long as it’s away from the elements…”

“Y-you’re coming the wrong way for _Aoi Yama,_ ” the man said suspiciously. He peered over Rukia’s shoulder to get a better look at Orihime, causing the orange-haired girl to hide further.

Rukia sighed quietly. “Yes, I was separated from my friend on a journey. Now I’m headed back to _Aoi Yama_ to try and find him.” She swallowed hard. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen a young man with wild red hair coming through here? Possibly injured?”

Failing to make eye contact with Orihime, the man turned back to Rukia and shook his head. “No, I haven’t seen anyone. And…if you want shelter here you have to go through our leader.”

“I understand. May we speak with him? Or…her?” Rukia was trying to discern what the weird look in the man’s face meant.

The man stood up taller. “If you want to get into our village, let me see your friend’s face a little better.” 

He held up a lantern in Orihime’s direction, squinting in the dimming evening light. Feeling the girl shrink against her back, Rukia turned around slowly. “It’s alright,” she whispered. “He just wants to see your face.” 

Orihime looked back at Rukia with wide, panicked eyes. 

On instinct, Rukia grabbed the girl’s shaking hands and held them still. “I won’t let them hurt you,” she murmured—so quietly she was not sure if Orihime had even heard. And honestly, Rukia had no way of defending herself…except with the stalwart internal stoicism of Sode no Shirayuki…

Oh, but Orihime had heard the words. Her heart skipped a beat as she registered Rukia’s warm sentiment. The skin on her hands tingled where Rukia was holding her.

“We’re here with you, princess,” Shun’o muttered. 

Orihime nodded to Rukia, feeling a surge of confidence. Pulling out of the black-haired girl’s hands, she stepped out into the lantern light. 

“Ah,” the man said, sizing up Orihime where she stood. “You…you are not from _Aoi Yama_ , are you, miss? I’ve known many a blue mountain folk and none of them looked anything like you.”

“I’m…not from there,” Orihime admitted quietly, staring down at the ground. 

The man nodded. He seemed satisfied with the truth. “Well, whatever business you have is not for me to pry. Come on, I’ll take you to Unohana-sama.” 

He turned his back and led them through the shifty fence that separated the village from the outside land. Clearly this village raised farm animals of some kind if they had a paddock around their border.

They passed through the town with curious, bundled heads popping up curiously as they walked by. The man nodded, obviously feeling proud to be the subject of interest for a moment. He whispered some words as he passed (“Yes, found these two young’uns here, wondering outside,” “Girl says she’s not from around these parts,” “Passing through here, explain later…”) Overall, the village seemed to be in semi-good shape for early winter. Most homes seemed properly thatched. 

But where were all the animals? Rukia found it odd. She glanced around the village and saw no sign of fauna. No rice paddocks either, other than the standard rudimentary ones closed down for winter. How strange…what was this village’s livelihood?

The man took them to a circular hut. The door was already slid open, some young women and men spilling in and out, staring brazenly at Orihime and Rukia. Brushing past them, the man brought them into the hut where a grown woman sat in the middle of the tatami mat, in polite _seiza_ position. She had thick black hair, braided inexplicably on her front side around her throat.

Kneeling in utmost respect, the man explained to the woman how he had found the two and how they were seeking shelter for the night. Following his lead, the girls kneeled down as well.

“Shelter, hmm?” the woman murmured. “Well, I don’t see why not. You there, take off the hood of your _mino_ so I can look at you.”

Reluctantly, Rukia did just that. Several gasps were heard around the room as people realized the second stranger was also a woman.

“Two women?”

“At night?”

The whispers buzzed without any effort at all.

“As I thought,” the braided woman said with a curt nod. “But you know I have to ask. What brings two young women on the road during the winter season? Especially a winter as harsh as this one?”

“We’re headed to _Aoi Yama,_ ” Rukia said. She did not elaborate. This village was starting to give her a weird feeling…she held onto Sode no Shirayuki’s icy eyes in her heart. 

The woman’s face turned sharp and serious. “You’re from there, aren’t you? I can tell by your face.” She sighed and looked to the side. “Fallen on hard times, _Aoi Yama_ has. As have we all, I suppose. Anyway, yes, you are welcome to stay here for the night. But only for one night. At daybreak you must leave us. For you see, this village is not…strictly safe.”

Both girls blinked in the flickering candlelight of the hut. 

“What I mean is,” the woman continued. “there have been some strange…disappearances lately. Our business is based on raising of calves into oxen for trading purposes. We breed the best oxen in either direction. But for the past few months, all of our calves have been slowly disappearing…We have only a handful of calves left. Now, some of our youngest children have begun to vanish in the night as well.”

“That’s terrible!” Orihime cried, holding a hand to her chest.

The woman nodded. “Yes,” she said sadly. “And we cannot find the cause. So please, avail yourselves of what little shelter we can offer in the now abandoned stable behind this hut, but remember. Do not let yourselves get too comfortable.”

What an odd welcome, Rukia thought. And even odder circumstances.

Standing up, the woman regarded them with finality. “My name is Unohana Retsu. I lead these people—to whatever end, as the case may be now. Let me know if you see anything troubling tonight.”

With that, Unohana strode out of the hut, several people following her. Orihime and Rukia were led to the stable which still felt consumed by an eerie, unsettling aura. It looked like it ought not be abandoned, like the cattle were just…out to pasture or something. Something bad had happened here, that was for sure.

Once they were finally alone, Orihime and Rukia unconsciously huddled closer in the middle of the stable. There was some sparse straw on the ground and the smell of live animals had not dissipated in the slightest. Hardly a comfortable surrounding, but better than a cold night on the road.

“Can you help us, Shun’o?” Orihime asked. 

“Is it safe to come out?”

Orihime glanced around carefully. “Yes, I think so.”

“Alright.” Shun’o flew out from the confines of Orihime’s coat and began raising the temperature in the barn to something a bit more livable. Both girls sighed in relief as they warmed themselves in Shun’o’s magical aura. Hinagiku, the goblin-like fairy, sprinted outwards and began settling small unnatural lights around to dispel any strange tendrils of darkness.

“Something feels wrong about this place,” Rukia said aloud as she watched Hinagiku work. The fairy was quick and soon the two girls felt at ease with his defensive light around them.

“Yes,” Orihime said, scooping her legs into sweep of her bear fur coat. “This is the work of a yokai for sure.”

No surprise there, Rukia thought. She nodded wordlessly. 

“I’m not sure if it’s a good or bad yokai though. Not yet.”

“A bad yokai?” Rukia tilted her head to side. “You mean, an oni?”

Orihime nodded. “Yes, but I have a different name for them. You see, oni are just regular yokai who have lost their light and become twisted by some purpose. Usually something bad happened to them to make them that way. They are hollow, lacking the fundamental joy of life that helps all creatures survive. So, I call them Hollows.”

Rukia nodded as she listened. “I see.” She let her legs touch the ground now, warming up slightly. Stretching out, she thought about what Unohana had said about the calves. “So do you think a Hollow is responsible for what’s happening in this village?”

Orihime shook her head. “I don’t know. But…” she sighed and squeezed her eyes closed. “I hope not.”

“Why?”

“Hollows are a terrible sight. I…have never confronted one before, only seen them lurking in the forest, fighting with other yokai. They seem…very difficult to defeat. I don’t know how we would stand a chance.” 

Very uplifting, Rukia thought stolidly. 

“Especially since…” Orihime continued. “Especially since the only real way to defeat a Hollow is to purify it. And I do not know how to purify something! I’ve never tried before.” 

“Oh,” Rukia said, searching her memory for everything she knew about purification—which was, admittedly, very little. She knew only of a few cursory purification scrolls the villagers hung around their land as a boon for the mountain god. That was about it. “Well…let’s just try to survive the night. Maybe we won’t meet anything here and we can just be on our way come daybreak.” 

Orihime nodded. 

Now came the awkward business of trying to sleep in this stable. Rukia laid down flat on her back, still wrapped in her _mino._ At least the hood offered some cushioning for her head, as stiff as the straw was.

“…Rukia-san?” 

The black-haired girl turned towards Orihime. The other girl was biting her lip in anxiety, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. She seemed like she was struggling to say something.

“What is it, Orihime?”

“Can I…?” the other girl began. She inched closer to Rukia on her knees. “Can I…lay down a little closer to you? I have these weird shivers on the back of my neck from the yokai’s scent, and I need to be near something…comforting, right now…”

As she spoke, Rukia’s heart beat rapidly in her chest. Orihime was blushing hard now, bright red. The black-haired girl sat up and regarded her friend searchingly. Orihime thought Rukia’s presence was…comforting? How…could that be? After everything Rukia had put her through…? 

But the way that Orihime looked at her, so conflicted but so obviously truthful about what she wanted. Rukia could not deny that peaked her interest (in more ways than one)—more than anything, she just wanted to offer Orihime what she could. 

“Yes,” Rukia said carefully. “Feel free to…lay down next to me.” Even as she said, Rukia felt her chest burning with embarrassment. It sounded like she was offering something entirely different—

Did Orihime even know what she was getting herself into? Deciding not to tempt fate (or anything else), Rukia turned over onto her side, giving the other girl her back. 

Saying nothing, Orihime set down her bear fur coat laid down only a hair’s breadth away from Rukia. From here, she could smell Rukia’s _mino,_ the sweet scent of fresh straw and dampness that came from Rukia’s own village. Despite how the other girl had coldly given her back, Orihime felt much closer to friend this way. That feeling lit a small, secret flame in her heart. So comforted, Orihime fell naturally to sleep.

Hearing her friend’s breathing even out, Rukia allowed herself to turn over on her back. Sure enough, Orihime was out cold, snoring slightly as she slept. The girl must be exhausted, Rukia reasoned, to have travelled so far from the forest on her first day out. She felt…guilty for a moment. But Orihime had practically begged her to go. This was what the girl wanted.

Rukia sighed as she stared at the other girl. What did this girl hope to gain out here in the real world? She was so innocent…sleeping peacefully here, in a cursed stable. As she breathed out, a loose orange hair fluttered on the side of her face.

Without thinking, Rukia reached out and tucked the stray hair behind Orihime’s ear. The girl twitched briefly in her sleep, but did nothing else. 

How, Rukia wondered, how is her skin so soft? So perfect…? Orihime’s reclining figure looked like a beacon of light, an otherworldly piece of perfection here in the dark stable. She wanted to rub her face against Orihime’s hair, to wrap the other girl in her arms…

You’re sick, she told herself. This is a defenseless girl!

_“You’re human,”_ a familiar voice said. _“Be honest with yourself about what you want.”_

Feeling the room grow several degrees colder, Rukia felt Sode no Shirayuki’s presence behind her. When she turned to look though, the other woman had vanished, leaving only a smattering of snowflakes in her wake. 

Sighing, Rukia turned back to Orihime and let the calming vision of her friend lull her sleep.

________________________________________________________________

In the middle of the night, Rukia awoke to what sounded like a dog snuffling over her head. At first she thought it was a village dog who had wandered into the stable. But then gradually the snuffling became louder, mixed with a strange snarling that made Rukia open her eyes.

There, in the utterly still darkness, Rukia lay face to face with a red-eyed beast. Its huge snout eclipsed her vision, separating her from Orihime as its face sniffed their bodies. Drool from the dog-like creatures giant mouth dripped onto the floor.

Rukia held a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. She understood all at once—this was his hunting ground and he was here…to claim something.

The creature turned its face in either direction as if trying to weigh its options between Rukia and Orihime. On the left side of its face, Rukia could see a protruding jaw bone—it looked almost like this creature wore its jaw on the outside of its face. 

Settling over Orihime, the oni began rubbing his sharp whiskers and chin over the young girl’s face. Slowly, Orihime herself began to wake up. She opened her eyes and saw Rukia trying desperately not to scream. In the next breath she became aware of the oni—a creature now licking its chops as it stared at her.

Unable to stop herself, Orihime screamed at the top of her lungs.

The oni roared in response. Rukia sat up quickly, taking in how large this beast was—as long as two oxen nose to tail and as wide around as a horse. She shuffled away on the backs of her feet.

“H-hollow…!” Orihime tried to scuffle away as well. 

Then the beast reached out with his gaping mouth and grabbed Orihime by her waist. Rukia pushed herself forward without thinking, beating her fists into the creature’s sides. One swing of his body-length tail and Rukia was knocked back hard against the wall of the stable.

Her vision went black for a moment as her body tried to recover from the hit. She heard a harsh ringing in her ears, as well as the shambling of the oni and Orihime’s vague shouts. Several footsteps as villagers ran to the stables to see what all the commotion was.

Rukia forced herself to blink hard several times. There was movement all around her, but she could barely tell up from down.

_“Summon me, Rukia.”_

She heard Sode no Shirayuki’s voice loud and clear. Feeling a pulse of coldness radiate throughout her, Rukia opened her eyes wide in clarity. She got to her feet immediately.

Unohana stood next to Rukia, staring at the large oni-shaped hole the creature had left in the stable as it dragged Orihime out into the wilderness. 

“Orihime!” Rukia cried, looking back and forth between Unohana and the villagers. “That thing took my friend!”

Unohana remembered silent. “Yes.” Her eyes glinted in the darkness, looking suddenly threatening. Why in the hell was everyone standing still?! “It is satiated for tonight.”

In that moment, Rukia put all the pieces together. They had been put there as bait for the oni to protect the rest of the villagers. Bitter rage flowed through Rukia as she looked at Unohana and the rest. None of them were meeting her gaze.

Setting her jaw in determination, Rukia shook her head hard. “Like hell!” She ran into the cold night (her _mino_ long since discarded, in only her _shihakusho_ ) after Orihime.

As she ran, Rukia found that she barely even felt the cold. Instead, all of her senses focused on finding the direction the oni had gone. She felt like her mind had been heightened, almost like she could feel some sort of pressure emanating where the oni had been—a spiritual kind of pressure…

Following the strange sensation, Rukia ran as fast as she ever had. She remembered how it had felt to run from those bandits, completely helpless…No more. She would never leave Orihime to be eaten by an oni—the greatest injustice Rukia could ever think of, all because the young girl had met Rukia and decided to go out into the world. Absolutely not—

Without even thinking about Sode no Shirayuki, Rukia found a wealth of determination rushing through her bones. She would fight this thing even if it meant her death—

About half a mile away, the oni had made its nest in a small, dark cave. Rukia felt the pressure and heard the snarls that could only come from the beast. She inched her way to the mouth of the cave, peering into the darkness. 

“Orihime?” she called curiously, hearing the faint echoes of her friend’s whimpers. 

Only silence responded. So, Rukia took a hesitant step into the cave. Immediately, the beast roared loudly in the darkness. It seemed that the oni could also feel Rukia’s distinct pressure—

It came rushing to meet her. The face of a monstrous dog mixed with the body of an ox, the claws of a lizard…a terrifying sight, as Orihime had promised. 

But Rukia held her ground as a hot wind almost knocked her backwards. She settled into a stance and held her hands out in front of her. The oni, seeing her defiance gnashed its teeth in her direction. Its body emitted a strange orange glow, illuminating the darkness of the cave. Immediately Rukia saw the treasure trove this monster had hidden—several small calves in various states of living dying, and then Orihime on her knees with two human toddlers clinging to her arms. Orihime was trying to protect the children and comfort them, shielding them from the abrasive wind from this oni. 

Still, Rukia was able to catch Orihime’s eyes as the oni screamed another roar of warning in her face. The two girls passed a heartfelt conversation—silent, in the span of a second. Orihime looked terrified but resolute, Rukia looked angry and determined. 

“I’m doing this,” Rukia said. Nothing else needed words.

Turning back to the oni, Rukia tried to aim a roundhouse kick to the creature’s ugly face. She missed, of course (had never really had a chance), and the oni clamped down on her leg. Flesh and bones gave way to its demonic teeth and Rukia cried in pain.

“Rukia-san!!” Orihime cried. 

The pain had a taste, Rukia realized. Her mouth was filled with sourness as blood seeped out of her leg and she crumbled to the ground. Something evil in the wound… Rukia shook her head and thought slowly… Is this how I die? Useless as ever?

_“Stand up and summon me.”_

Rukia blinked and suddenly everything around her was covered in white. A sprawling snowy landscape as far as the eye could see. Coldness and silence in every direction. Rukia turned her head from side to side trying to discern where she was, but in her heart she already knew. This was her soul-scape, her mind’s space.

Sure enough, Sode no Shiryuki stood over Rukia as beautiful as ever—she was not smiling, she looked serious but something about her tingled with excitement. She reached out with one delicately sleeved hand and pulled Rukia to her feet.

The two women’s eyes met. For a second Rukia saw a vision of herself combined with Sode no Shirayuki, impossibly meshed into one conglomerate being, their looks and appearances blurring into each other. She gasped when she saw it, feeling like her and this other woman occupied the same place and time. She could feel Sode no Shirayuki’s presence in her very core—

_“Yes, Rukia. That’s us together. That’s what we can do. Now summon me!”_ Sode no Shirayuki smiled and leaned in to whisper in Rukia’s ear. _“I’ll show you the way.”_

Rukia embraced Sode no Shirayuki, her longing from the dream they shared returning full force. She wanted to be one with this woman, she wanted everything—her power, her body, her beauty… Sode no Shirayuki seemed to know this. She pulled back, held one delicate finger against Rukia’s chin, and kissed the black-haired girl fully on the mouth.

As they kissed, something passed between them. A bit of their souls, perhaps.

When Rukia opened her eyes again she was back in the forest, laying wounded on her side. Her leg was bleeding but she could no longer feel the pain. She saw the oni advancing on Orihime and the children, but when she looked down…there was a white katana in her hand. A white ribbon fluttered outward from the pommel.

Holding this sword in her hand, Rukia felt complete for the first time in her life. She knew what to do. 

“Dance, Sode no Shirayuki.”

Rukia turned her blade upside in a slow circular motion. The Hollow, sensing the change in her spiritual pressure, turned around and faced her with wide, hungry eyes. Rukia’s own face was impassive and serious, focused on controlling the overwhelming force she felt flowing through her arm from where it made contact with the blade. She had to use her other hand to steady her sword arm. 

Pointing the tip of the katana into the ground, Rukia called out in a loud voice, “ _Some no mai, Tsukishiro!”_ In her ears, it sounded like her voice had blended with Sode no Shirayuki’s. 

Properly summoned, the ground where the blade’s tip touched began to freeze. Rukia could see fingers of ice stretching outward from her sword, reaching further and further until they encircled the oni. 

The creature roared in pain as his feet began to freeze on contact. He galloped away from the frost on instinct, trying to escape the cold. Then the beast howled, redoubling his own confidence and attempting to lunge at Rukia again.

With a wordless cry, Rukia slashed her blade in the direction of the oni. She did not make contact—but that had not been her intention. Instead, her blade began to glow brightly and the space of air she had slashed erupted in frozen crystals. The crystals extended outward until they reached the hollow, wrapping him around the middle and encasing most of his body in ice.

Suddenly quite heavier, the oni fell on his side, snarling and screaming as he tried to fight the bonds of ice that held him fast. Sode no Shirayuki’s grasp was relentless it seemed, as the more he struggled the more solidly the ice froze and thicker his bonds became. 

Rukia approached the creature slowly, keeping her fighting stance firm. She would have to kill it now. It was just like any other beast. She needed to slaughter it for the sake of all the people it killed, all the people it further intended to kill—

“Rukia-san!” Orihime shouted from the sidelines. “You must purify it! That is the only way to end this for good!”

Oh, right. Rukia glanced sideways for a moment, thinking about how she would purify it. What the hell did she know about any of that? She was not a priestess…

_“Use me,”_ her sword said, humming powerfully in her mind. _“My dull side can purify this creature.”_

Rukia understood right away. Steadying her nerves, she ran up to oni and locked eyes with it—seeing for the first time intense fear as the creature realized its own demise was near…

“Be at peace,” Rukia said softly. At this point, seeing the helplessness that she knew so well, the girl wanted only to ease this creature’s pain.

With that, she turned the _tsuba_ of her blade over and struck the oni on the forehead with the pommel. A blinding white light spread outward from the oni and Rukia had to shield her eyes for a moment as she felt an outward burst of spiritual pressure. 

When she opened her eyes again, a large brown ox and thickset (but friendly looking) dog stared back at her. The ox lowed in appreciation. The dog wagged his tail and yipped merrily at Rukia. 

Orihime appeared suddenly. “You’re welcome,” she said to the animals. “Rest now.” 

On cue, the animals slowly disappeared. When they left, there was no more trace of the oni or its evil spiritual pressure. The only thing that remained was the rapidly thawing ice from Rukia’s blade.

“They were animals from the village,” Orihime explained, turning back to her friend. “The ox was wounded during travel one summer. Starving, the dog ate the ox to stay alive. He ended up dying of starvation anyway, as did many villagers that year. Their spirits were unable to rest and so…this Hollow was born.” 

Orihime wiped away some stray tears from her face. “You were amazing, Rukia-san,” she said breathlessly. “How did you…? That sword…”

“I…” Rukia held up the katana and regarded it in bewilderment. “I…don’t know myself, honestly…”

As both girls watched, Sode no Shirayuki’s light faded and the katana began to look like any normal sword—well cared for, with a slight sheen on the sheath, and a reddish brown _tsuba._

“That’s…” Orihime touched the hilt with her fingertips. She visibly shivered in response. “That sword is…” 

When she looked back at Rukia, she had a bright, shining look of longing on her face. Her breasts quivered as she unconsciously moved closer to her friend.

“That sword feels like you, Rukia-san,” she whispered. “It’s so wonderful…”

Despite all the confusion Rukia felt about what was happening to her, what possible reason there could be for this sword to be hers, she found that staring into Orihime’s eyes…suddenly none of that seemed too complicated. The orange-haired girl looked at her with such complete confidence and admiration; as far as the yokai girl was concerned, Rukia was always meant to have this sword.

Feeling the small space in between them getting smaller, Rukia’s chest heaved as she registered Orihime’s hot breath against her lips. Her skin tingled, her lips twitching with the want to touch… She leaned in to kiss the girl and Orhime did the same—

“You’re alive! Oh, thank the gods, my son!”

“My daughter!”

“The calves! Some of them are still alive!”

As they stood about to kiss, villagers rushed around them from all angles. The children hiding in the caves ran into their parents’ arms, some farmers began rounding up the baby cattle one by one.

Rukia and Orihime sighed, glancing back at each other for a moment. They stepped back for propriety’s sake, Orihime bent down to use Souten Kisshun on Rukia’s damaged leg. But both girls knew. Something had changed between them.

In the best way possible. Rukia’s head swam as she thought what Orihime might be feeling—as a seed of hope planted itself in her heart…

Unohana stepped out of the crowd and approached the girls. Some of the villagers were staring at them wide-eyed, looking astonished and almost afraid. For her part, the village leader just smiled softly.

“I saw the end of your fight,” Unohana said to the girls. “And your...this." She gestured vaguely to the light coming from Orihime's hands as Rukia's leg wound closed magically. "You have some…interesting abilities.”

“Well, we…” Orihime stammered for a moment, trying to think of something to excuse what they had just saw. Would they be condemned now for harnessing and using some kind of yokai magic?

Rukia shook her head. “We got rid of the oni that was plaguing your village. Now some of the spirits you lost to famine are finally at peace.”

Unonhana bowed her head in thanks. “I cannot thank you deeply enough. You two women have done an amazing service to our humble village.” She opened her eyes and flashed them a curious look. “I only hope you have found what you were looking for when you first came to us this evening.”

Rukia blinked as she started to understand the older woman’s meaning. “As we said,” she answered calmly, sheathing Sode no Shirayuki and tying it in the _obi_ at her side. “We only wanted some shelter for tonight. As for everything else, we were not put into this position by choice.”

“No, indeed—” 

“Excuse me?” 

Unohana and Rukia were interrupted by a small child, leading his mother by the hand over to Orihime and Rukia. 

He looked up at Orihime smiled brightly. “Thank you for saving me, _onee-chan_!” He turned to Rukia and bowed respectfully. “And thank you for defeating the monster, _nii-san_!”

“ _Nii-san_??” Orihime sputtered, glowering. “I’m not a boy!” She pointed to herself emphatically. “I’m a girl, damn it!”

The boy looked up at her confusedly. “You’re a girl? But…you fight with a sword. And you have no…?” He pointed to her chest, clearly perplexed.

Orihime laughed good-naturedly and held onto Rukia’s shoulders as the black-haired girl fought down the urge to reach out and strangle this kid. “Just…go back to your village…kid,” Rukia spit out between breaths.

The rest of the villagers lined up next to the child. They bowed deeply to the two girls. The forest was silent as the town showed its gratitude all at once. In one unified voice they called out, “Thank you very much.” 

Orihime blushed. Rukia had to blink several times to make sure she was seeing correctly. Neither one of them had ever been on the receiving end of something so heartfelt and formal. They were stunned into silence as the town bowed deeply several more times. 

“Well, it seems the people have spoken,” Unohana said graciously, approaching the two girls from the side. She bowed on her own. “So please, let us know if there is anything we can give you to show our thanks.” 

Finding her voice at last, Rukia hid a lopsided smile against the side of her thumb. “As a matter of fact, my village is in dire need of grain to food to last us through the winter…”

And so, that day as the sun began to rise, Orihime and Rukia set out from the village and headed into the mountains. They had a small wheelbarrow of three pails of grain and four more large bags of rice. 

As they neared the mountains, Orihime let her hand slip over Rukia’s on the handle of the wheelbarrow. The black-haired girl did not fail to notice. She smiled as bright as the rising sun while they pushed the cart up the steep mountain path.

___________________________________________________________

They walked most of the next day and into the night. By that time, they had made it less than halfway up the mountain, but it was still a good distance to have covered in such a short time. The _Aoi Yama_ mountains were wide around—formidable for anyone, even Orihime who had grown up mostly in the wilderness. Exhausted, they finally decided to stop for the night in a small grove of trees that had shed almost all of their leaves. Even in winter the forests on the mountain stayed dense. The mountains seemed to maintain their magical quality even while everything on them died.

The girls set up camp, cooking a small meal of soup with the leftover nuts and mushrooms they brought. The people of the village had been grateful enough to give them a full meal before they left so the girls were in pretty good shape food-wise. So far, their journey had been surprisingly (dare they say it?) easy.

Orihime thought to herself as she ate her soup. The world had not changed much since she left it. Really, the only difference in her eyes was…Rukia. She flicked her eyes over to her companion, surreptitiously watching the girl. That girl’s power and beauty was unlike anything Orihime had ever seen. What tremendous strength the yokai of that blade must have…and how marvelous Rukia was to be able to wield it!

In Rukia’s mind-view, Sode no Shirayuki rested quietly on the edge of her thoughts. Ever present. Rukia could feel her at all times. The woman’s energy hummed at her side from where her katana dangled, and Rukia was able to hold conversations with her without slipping away from reality. They shared their thoughts freely now.

And in all honesty, Rukia was not afraid. Knowing what went on inside Sode no Shirayuki’s mind, Rukia saw now that she had nothing to fear from her. The woman was a spirit—a yokai, Sode no Shirayuki herself had admitted that much—but she swore her only goal was to protect Rukia. Seeing her heart, Rukia knew the woman spirit did not lie. 

Even if she wondered, almost desperately, why this spirit had chosen her. She could feel the truth buried deep in Sode no Shirayuki’s consciousness, but she could not reach it to see what it was. Not yet.

“How far are we from your village, Rukia-san?” Orihime asked. She sounded like she was in good spirits. 

Rukia put down her soup bowl and rested her head against a tree. She laid down Sode no Shirayuki beside her. “We still have a ways to go,” she explained. “Maybe another day or two.”

“Your mountain is amazing,” Orihime continued. She slid over to kneel across from Rukia. “Have you ever made friends with the yokai here?”

“Uh…no,” Rukia admitted. “I’d never really seen yokai before I met you.”

Well, Orihime knew that was not true. “Maybe you just don’t remember,” she said happily.

Rukia had never thought of that. She glanced down curiously at Sode no Shirayuki. _“Hmm,”_ the blade said cryptically.

“I guess…” Rukia heaved a sigh and stared up into the starless winter sky. “I guess anything is possible now. I mean, you saw the way I defeated that oni. I never…thought I would be capable of something like that.”

“Really?” Orihime’s face tilted in the burnt glow of the campfire. “You never knew you could do that?”

“Did _you_?” Rukia asked incredulously.

“Umm…” Orihime pushed her hair over her shoulder. “Kind of, actually. I always knew I was different. Yokai were my earliest friends, as far back as I can remember. Even as a baby my mother said I played with invisible things…”

Rukia shifted uncomfortably as Orihime made the comparison between their lives. “So you think I’m…different, too?”

“I mean…” Orihime shrugged her shoulders. “Not many people can summon ice from the ground. Besides, I was there and I saw you pull that sword out of thin air.”

Rukia nodded. Could she ever…explain Sode no Shirayuki to anyone else? She had considered asking Orihime about the woman for a while now. “It’s true. But even so, this is all new to me, Orihime. That was the first time I ever fought with a sword.”

“You wouldn’t know by watching!” 

Rukia blushed. “Thank you. Actually, though…there’s something I wanted to ask you.”

“Sure.” Orihime crossed her legs interestedly. 

“Have you ever…” How the hell could she say this and not sound crazy? Wait a minute, this was Orihime. Of all people, this girl would understand. “…seen a woman near me? A woman dressed in an all white _furisode_ with white skin and hair?” 

Orihime blinked once, trying to remember. “A woman? You mean like a _futakuchi-onna_ or a _rokuro-kubi_ …?” 

“No, I mean like a regular woman except she’s pure white. With blue eyes. She looks…like a woman of high society. A princess maybe…”

_“You flatter me,”_ Sode no Shirayuki cut in. Rukia chuckled slightly.

Confused, Orihime scratched her head. “No, I don’t remember ever seeing anyone like that. I’ve never…seen a real princess before! The fairies call me 'princess' because it made me happy when I was a kid, but it’s kind of embarrassing now…Anyway, no, to answer your question. Why do you ask?”

Rukia took a breath and began. “Because, to me it feels like…there’s always been a woman with me. Somewhere near me or even inside of me. She looks like that and she has these ice powers. That’s where this sword came from, it’s really hers—or else, it is her, in the form of a sword and…sorry, am I rambling?”

Orihime looked fascinated. She shook her head quickly. “No, no, please go on!”

A swell of appreciation rose within Rukia. Only Orihime. “So…yeah. That’s where my power comes from, I think. It’s all her. And her name is Sode no Shirayuki.”

The blade shivered as its name was called.

“Sode no Shirayuki?” Orihime repeated. “That’s a beautiful name. I’m sure this yokai of yours is a very beautiful woman.”

“She is,” Rukia answered. “She definitely is. And yet I…don’t know what she wants with me, except to protect me.” On that, Sode no Shirayuki remained staunchly quiet.

Orihime shrugged. “She’ll tell you, I’m sure. When she’s ready to tell you. Sometimes…” the girl trailed off and looked into the fire. “Sometimes people and creature have a lot they want to tell you, but they just don't know how.”

Rukia nodded. Definitely true. 

After a few more moments of silence, Orihime spoke up again. “Rukia, I…I need to tell you something before we continue on this journey.” 

For once, the girl sounded serious. “Alright,” Rukia said.

“First of all,” Orihime oriented herself so that she was facing her friend. “I have loved being here with you on this venture. I can not imagine doing it with anyone else. Ever since we met I’ve been…so happy to be with you, Rukia.” She blushed hard, but kept going. “So much so that I…think I have some kind of…well…” 

Suddenly, Rukia was on the edge of her seat waiting to hear what her friend might say.

Orihime doubled back. “Just that I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, Rukia-san! Because I really do cherish our time together. Maybe even more than I should…”

Rukia inched forward on her knees. She could feel anxiety radiating off the other girl. Putting a hand on her friend’s shoulder gently, she asked, “What do you mean, Orihime?” 

“It’s all because…” Orihime’s face was hidden behind a curtain of tangled orange hair. “I mean, I didn’t want to ruin anything by kissing you in the bath that night. I didn’t even really mean for it to happen, it just did and I—”

“Wait,” Rukia said, stunned. “ _You_ kissed _me_?” 

“Oh! Yeah!” Orihime turned and looked at her friend confusedly. “Don’t you remember, Rukia-san…?”

“No, I remember the kiss, but I thought…” Rukia’s heart pounded and her face turned bright red. 

“You thought what?”

“I thought _I_ was the one who started the kiss,” Rukia admitted finally. “That’s why I…left in a hurry like that. I didn’t want you to be embarrassed because of me.” 

“Embarrassed?” Orihime faced Rukia fully. She laid both hands on the other girl’s shoulders. “Why would I be embarrassed?”

“Because…” This conversation was really way too stressful and confusing for Rukia’s liking. “I didn’t want to make you do something you didn’t want to do…”

Orihime’s whole face widened in sudden surprise and understanding. “You thought I… You thought I didn’t want…” Then she burst out laughing. Before the other girl could say anything, Orihime pulled her in for a tight hug. While they embraced, she whispered softly into Rukia’s ear, “I loved kissing you like that, Rukia-san. It made me feel…so alive. I just didn’t know if you felt the same way.”

All of Rukia’s fears and guilt rippled throughout her body in one final rush, before evaporating quickly into the night. Orihime wanted her the same way! Impossible, but…so many things were impossible, this seemed like a delicacy actually within her grasp. 

If her curse was to be attracted to this girl, then Rukia would bear it as she bore every other curse in her life: With dignity. And joy, if it were possible. Now, suddenly, joy seemed like a very real thing she might experience.

The girls looked at each other carefully, trying to read any sign of discomfort or confusion in each other’s faces. Naturally, there was none. Orihime combed her fingers through Rukia’s slick back hair and Rukia gently cupped her friend’s face. Slowly, happily, Orihime kissed Rukia’s cheeks and ran her lips over the girl’s jaw until she reached her lips. Then, in a soft flurry of desire, they kissed.

Each girl melted into their kiss in her own way. Rukia felt the tension from days of being sexually frustrated and needy for Orihime give way—the dams of desire cracking until she was a mess of want, already wet between her legs. She parted her legs wider now to get a better angle against Orihime. 

For her part, the orange-haired girl felt like her soul’s cry had been answered—here was Rukia, in her arms at last, wanting her. She held tightly onto the other girl to make sure this moment would stay real. 

Their breasts rubbed against each other underneath their kimono tops. Rukia, in all her impatience, was already almost sitting in Orihime’s lap. She ran her hand down Orihime’s neck, unable to stop herself from traveling down farther to cup one of the girl’s tremendous breasts. She tested the weight of that flesh in her palm before curling her hand around the side and rubbing in ecstasy.

“Ooh…” Orihime moaned quietly. “Rukia-san, that’s…”

The heat in Rukia’s core burned her inside out. She squeezed tighter and kissed harder, trapping the other girl’s bottom lip in her mouth. She sucked the soft flesh there before nipping it lightly, making Orihime shiver in her arms.

They seemed to decide all at once that they would lay down together. From this angle, Rukia straddled Orihime’s hips and ran her hands all over the other girl’s chest and stomach. She reached into the folds of the _yukata_ to stroke Orihime’s supple skin. Hesitantly—almost reverently, really—she pulled back the partings of the garment to reveal all of Orihime’s bare form underneath.

Now she could look at this girl with full scrutiny. Those ridiculously large breasts bounced naturally of their own accord as Orihime squirmed underneath her. The girl’s nipples were wide and light brown in color, hardening now that they were exposed to the night. Rukia ran her fingertips over those nipples experimentally—never having touched another person like this before.

Orihime hissed and arched up into the touch. “Th-that’s really sensitive, Rukia-san…”

“Does it feel good?” Rukia asked quietly, rubbing her fingers back and forth. 

“Ah…” Orihime pushed her chest farther up into Rukia’s hands, asking for more contact. “..y-yes it does…”

Rukia smiled mischievously. “Good.” With that, she bent down and took Orihime’s nipples into her mouth, sucking on them hard and making the other girl cry out loudly. 

“R-rukia-san! Wh-what are you doing to me…?” Orihime asked, a smile on her lips.

Of course Rukia caught that look and it made her start ripping off her own clothes until she was bared to the waist. (Suddenly her own small breasts did not seem so disgraceful. She wanted to share all of herself with Orihime.) 

“I want to make you feel good, Orihime,” she said, pushing apart the girl’s _yukata_ until Orihime was completely bare. The thick patch of orange hair between her legs almost frightened Rukia at first—a sudden reminder that they were actually doing this—but then she became fascinated, wanting to feel and taste that hair for herself.

“You are, you are…” Orihime chanted, running her hands up and down Rukia’s own body. “I feel…I don’t know, my whole body feels hot right now.”

“Yes,” Rukia said, her skin reveling in every sweet touch from Orihime’s fingers. “Yes, I’m burning up too. Keep touching me…”

Rukia kissed Orihime’s stomach, rubbing her nose in the salty, tasty skin of this girl’s body. When she reached that thatch of coarse hair, Rukia smelled Orihime’s essence and on instinct she inhaled deeply. That scent—umami mixed with fresh earth and river water—drove Rukia wild. She moaned into the smell and kissed the wet folds of flesh underneath.

This girl…Rukia longed to be near this girl in any way she could. 

Orihime moaned as she felt Rukia’s lips brush her cunt. Her body was consumed by pleasure and need, things she had never fully felt before. But Orihime knew not to question anything, not to fight something that came so naturally from her own body. And it all made sense to her—Rukia was her soulmate. Like Izanagi and Izanami had been made as pairs, so were humans sometimes made with one single mate in the world. Rukia was that person.

Of course she was.

Tempting fate, Rukia spread Orihime’s legs wider so that she could fit her whole head in between there. Orihime responded easily, wrapping her fingers in Rukia’s short black locks, playing with her ears. 

Face to face with Orihime’s hidden center, Rukia gave in to the incessant need within her to explore more. She put her finger against the parting where Orihime’s two folds of flesh covered her vulva, her body’s beautiful secret. Slowly, ever so gently, she pushed her finger past that skin to touch the inside, where Orihime was flooded with wetness and heat.

“Ooh, Rukia, yes…” Orihime cried, shifting her hips upwards for friction. 

Getting the idea (and knowing herself how she liked to be touched), Rukia dragged her finger up and down across Orihime’s twitching flesh, feeling the girl’s opening and finally her throbbing clit.

“Ah!’ Orihime spasmed when Rukia finally touched that sweet bundle of nerves. “Rukia your fingers are so cold…it feels…ah, it feels s-so…”

Rukia rubbed Orihime’s clit with the tips of her two fingers, thumbing the girl’s entrance at the same time. She rubbed in circles, back and forth, then up and down, experimenting with how Orihime responded to a frequent change in pace. She pleasured Orihime in a way the girl herself had never done before—usually she was so shy about masturbating, but now Rukia’s fingers rode her clit like they knew exactly what to do—

In a mad rush, Orihime felt her orgasm build and spread within her like wildfire. 

“I-I’m—”

And then she was coming hard on Rukia’s hand, jerking her hips and holding onto her own breasts as her body told her exactly what it needed to feel amazing. She peaked again and again until her climax finally burned itself out and she collapsed against the ground.

After several moments of heavy breathing, Orihime realized her night was not nearly over. She sat up on her elbows and looked over at her friend-turned-lover.

Rukia was staring at Orihime with wide purple eyes. “Was that…okay?” Rukia asked, entranced by how thoroughly exciting it was to watch Orihime come. She wanted to do it again and she wanted Orihime to do the same to her.

Orihime bent forward and kissed Rukia hard on the mouth. “That was perfect, Rukia-san,” she whispered against the other girl’s lips. “Now, let me feel you.” 

With surprising force, Orihime pushed Rukia onto her back. Their positions successfully reversed, Orihime wasted no time divesting Rukia of her _shihakusho_ and _juban,_ gracefully undoing all the ties and folds as if they were merely an inconvenience. 

Naked underneath Orihime, Rukia took in every detail of where the other was looking. To start, Orihime ran her fingertips down Rukia’s stomach, down then up again to palm the girl’s sensitive breasts. She rubbed the heel of her hand into Rukia’s nipples, sending shocks of desire throughout the slim girl’s body. Rukia held onto Orihime’s hands lightly, feeling like she needed to know where those hands might go.

But oh how she loved those hands. These hands that had brought her back to life, the healing hands of an unnaturally kind girl—the girl that Rukia had fallen in love with.

Orihime let Rukia hold onto her, but she did not stop her motions. She slipped one hand between Rukia’s legs, prodding curiously at the thin layer of black fuzz Rukia had there. In truth, Rukia’s pubic hair was so light it offered her no protection, no privacy or covering for her two thick folds of flesh. Orihime ran her finger across the outline of Rukia’s labia, spreading wetness everywhere.

“Nnn…” Rukia moaned. Finally, a hand right where she needed it most. Orihime’s wonderful fingers, she needed them on her now!

Losing her mind to desire, Rukia spread her legs wide, forcing her labia apart so that Orihime could stroke her center. Seeing how needy her dear friend was, Orihime stroked Rukia’s desperate flesh with pity. 

“Let me help you, Rukia,” Orihime said sweetly. She stroked Rukia from clit to taint several times, making the girl’s eyes roll back in her head, her jaw falling open in a quiet moan.

Realizing what she could do, Orihime slowly slipped her finger inside Rukia’s throbbing entrance. So connected, Rukia contracted tightly around that finger, locking Orihime inside. It felt so good to be penetrated by this girl, to have a part of her body inside…she would never let her go.

Seeing and feeling Rukia’s response, Orihime stuck in another finger and fucked Rukia slowly. She took care to rub circles around in the inner flesh, which seemed to quiver and contract wherever she touched. Rukia’s hips kept a steady rhythm as she tried to fuck herself further on those fingers.

“That’s it, Rukia,” Orihime said lightly. “Let me take care of you. Just let go of everything else…”

“O-orihime…god damn it…” Rukia said, feeling tortured by the glorious but unfulfilling pleasure of being fucked so methodically. “Don’t stop, please, I need more…” 

“I know, I know,” Orihime answered. She sounded very happy. “Here you go.” With that, she released some of her otherworldly barrier inside Rukia—letting that mystical healing, defensive, magical yellow light spread within Rukia’s core. 

“Ah!!” Rukia’s body seized as she withstood the feeling. It felt like her vagina was radiating with the most amazing energy, a warm, vibrating glow that reached every part of her—even a secret part inside that seemed to implode with pleasure when the light touched her just so. 

Such stimulation on that spot, mixed with the echoing vibrations to her clit from Orihime’s barrier…Rukia heaved into climax before she even knew what was happening. She rode wave after wave of intense orgasm, unaware of what she looked like or even sounded like in that moment.

And Orihime could say honestly it was still utterly beautiful.

Finally coming back down from her climax, Rukia lay panting and exhausted underneath Orihime’s warm hands. The girl pulled out and laid down next to her, wrapping the slim girl in her arms.

“Oh, Rukia-san,” she said into the girl’s hair. “I’m so happy you feel the same way. I’m so happy we did this…” 

“Me too,” Rukia replied. She held tightly onto Orihime and hid an earth-shattering smile between the girl’s voluptuous breasts.

Never before had either of them been so happy—so sure they were in the right place at the right time. It was not a common thing and they were grateful to have the experience. 

The moon shone down on the two naked girls tangled in each other’s arms. From a safe distance away, Sode no Shirayuki saw the girls and was happy. Their satisfaction was hers too, in a way. And they made such a lovely pair together. 

Nothing in nature could deny that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes. Our girls finally get at each other. This story is coming along nicely (is that a pun? Do I take credit for that?). 
> 
> Stayed tuned for more! (Might have to add an extra chapter, you know me heheh).


	4. Pale Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rukia and Orihime encounter Aoi Yama village. Their paths become clear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait before the update! I blame my lack of focus. On anything.
> 
> Anyway, this ending comes after the real build up of the last chapter. It might feel more like an epilogue. But really it is the true climax of the story so I hope it does not disappoint!
> 
> Notes:  
> kodama 木霊 - nature spirits, a classic kind of yokai that live in trees and plants

**Chapter Four- Pale Blue**

The following morning, Rukia and Orihime woke up tangled in each other’s arms. The cold sun rose calmly, letting the girls take their time staring at one another, gauging each other’s mutual reactions. Orihime stroked Rukia’s side with the tips of her fingers, Rukia ran her hands through her friend’s hair again and again, tucking bright orange strands behind her ears.

They did not need to speak. Everything was clear on its own. They belonged to each other now. It was right.

In silence, they set off for the last long stretch of the journey. Rukia felt like a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders and from the wheelbarrow they toted. Sode no Shirayuki was positively singing today from the katana at her side, emitting a steady hum of thrilled energy.

Mixed with, of course, Orihime’s own merry humming. They gloomy atmosphere of the mountain seemed to disappear. Nothing else mattered now.

About a mile away from the village, Rukia started recognizing familiar markings on the trees and the pathway, signs that only people from her village would recognize. She flitted back and forth, checking the rocks piled just so or the strange nicks in the trees that symbolized the path to _Aoi Yama_.

“Almost there, now,” Rukia told Orihime. 

But something felt different. It was hard to describe, except that the very soul of the mountain was not the same as Rukia remembered. 

_“There is a dark force at work here,”_ Sode no Shirayuki warned. _“Be on your guard, Rukia-sama.”_

What in the world was this spirit talking about? How could the mountain have changed in such little time?

The two girls trudged forward, even as a light dusting of snow fell around them, hindering the wheels of their cart.

“Terrible luck!” Shun’o cried, trying to dispel the snow but unable to work on all of it at once.

Rukia tilted her head to the side, raising her palm to catch some of the snowflakes. Before they melted on her hand, they seemed to dance a bit in her spiritual energy. The sight of dancing snowflakes could only remind her of one thing.

Waving her hand, Rukia was able to control the snowflakes’ descent. She sent them spiraling to the side in a curtain, parting the way for her and Orihime.

“Much obliged!” Orihime said happily. She stood up straighter as she held the bear fur coat tighter. Not only was Rukia learning how to work with her power, but she was able to help them out with mundane tasks as well! Very promising.

Finally, the path lead to a clearing—two sturdy tree trunks standing parallel to each other. In between, Rukia could make out the distinct impression of her village coming into view. Home at last—and yet Rukia could not bring herself to smile. She felt nostalgia mixed with a strong sense of foreboding.

“Let’s…go…” she said, clearly uncertain.

Orihime, for her part, shivered. She recognized the scent of this place, even if Rukia did not—

Death.

Upon taking one step into _Aoi Yama,_ Rukia and Orihime felt as if they had been slapped in the face with the cold hand of reality. The houses Rukia knew well, the people…everything seemed shrunken. Old and worn down. Various straw mats lined up behind each and every house, covering dead bodies that could not be buried at this time because of the frozen ground. Rukia covered her mouth in horror, and Orihime held her hand to her chest, muttering a _kotodama_ to ward off any stray yokai that would be attracted to the strong smell of death. Orihime could already feel them gathering, hear their longing to devour in the wind…

“R…Rukia??” 

There were people huddled together around a large fire in the middle of the village. Rukia approached slowly, Orihime trailing behind her. She heard her name from a familiar mouth and felt violently wrenched toward the sound—

“Renji!”

Sure enough, her lifetime friend stood in front her. He looked skinny, with a bandana wrapped around his head for warm, huddled in another straw _mino._ When he saw Rukia, his eyes danced on the edge of uncertainty for a moment.

“Is this…” He glanced between her and Orihime for a moment. “…some kind of trick? A _tanuki_ spirit tricking me into believing you are alive…?”

“No, Renji…” Tears spilled from Rukia’s eyes and she ran forward, grabbing Renji’s shoulders. “It’s me! I survived! And…you…?”

Renji nodded solemnly. He pulled Rukia in for a rough, one-armed embrace. Here, many other people from the village ran into their houses to alert the rest of their families of Rukia’s return.

“I think I always knew,” Renji said quietly, holding onto Rukia with his one arm. Unable to stop herself, Rukia eyed Renji’s other arm, dangling limp at his side. She knew right away what had happened and she covered her mouth again in anguish. “I always knew you were alive.” He punched Rukia on the arm playfully. “Too stubborn to die, aren’t you?”

Rukia held her shoulder and laughed in spite of her tears. “Likewise, I suppose.” She gestured to Orihime and pulled her lover into view.

“This is Orihime,” she explained in a rush, not even caring about her friend’s appearance for a moment. “She’s the one who saved me. She’s…well…she’s…”

Rukia wanted to say that Orihime was her family now. That’s how she felt, that’s how it was. But Orihime was looking at Renji hesitantly, clearly feeling like she might be rejected at any turn. Renji scrutinized the young girl in his own way, sizing her up with his small beady eyes.

“She’s fine, Renji,” Rukia said quickly. “You can trust her. Same way you trust me.”

Slowly, Renji nodded. “Well, I trust you, Rukia, but…I don’t know if the village will welcome any outsiders right now.” 

“Well, look what we brought!” Orihime cried, with her usual forced cheerfulness. She ran over and brought the cart of food. “Gifts! From the village down at the foot of the mountain!” 

Renji saw the bounty in front of him and his jaw dropped. “How did you…?”

“How did you survive, Renji?” Rukia asked suddenly, forgetting what matters lay at hand. 

“Well, I—”

“Rukia!”

All three of them turned in the direction of the voice. Rukia was shocked to see a man she knew, but whom she had hardly ever had any interaction with in the past. His old, one-eyed look had been enough to keep even the most curious of orphan children away. And Rukia felt fundamentally that this man was the most mysterious of anyone in the village.

Barragan Louisenbarn stared back at Rukia and Orhime. He was wrapped in the traditional garments of the village leader, leaning heavily on the bone staff he always carried (rumored to have been plucked from the bones of a dragon, but never proven). A horde of villagers lined up behind him. Rukia’s heart froze as she saw the distrust in their eyes. 

“Rukia, my child,” Barragan began slowly, in his creaking voice. “We are so pleased to welcome you back.”

“Barragan-san…” Rukia bowed politely, but she kept her eyes turned up, watching him. “I am happy to return. I have many gifts of food for the village.”

“Food?”

“Is it true?”

“Tell me, what has Rukia brought?”

All at once, a cacophony broke out among the villagers. Several people ran ahead of Barragan and started divesting the cart of its contents. They cried in happiness and disbelief as they saw the bags of rice, holding the bounty above their heads as their starvation-slimmed arms shook under the weight. 

“We will eat tonight!”

“At last! Yama be praised!” 

“My children won’t starve!”

For a long time, people went about fetching the largest pot they could to cook the rice on the open fire in the middle of the village. Rukia let all of this happen, but she herself remained took still, staring at Barragan with an unease as the man shot the same aura right back at her. Alone among the villagers, Barragan did not seem the least bit fazed by the food she had brought.

“Barragan-san,” Rukia said slowly, her mind connecting with Sode no Shirayuki’s presence. “Where is Ukitake-sama?”

Renji put his hand on Rukia’s shoulder. Barragan huffed out a long sigh.

“Ukitake-sama died several weeks ago,” the old man said. “I have taken up his high place as village elder. A fruitless and lofty position, but one I hope to fulfill.”

Immediately, Rukia felt like she had been sucker punched. All the air left her lungs and for a moment she thought she might collapse. Ukitake…dead? She dropped to her knees in the snow, her soul crying out in anguish as Sode no Shirayuki tried to embrace her from the inside. 

The rational part of her knew that it made sense Ukitake would not survive this winter. The man had never been in good health, and this winter was especially brutal apparently. So it hardly needed questioning, and yet…Ukitake had been the closest thing Rukia ever had to a father. She felt his loss with all of her heart, feeling like the soul of this village had died with him.

At least, to Rukia it had.

Renji gripped Rukia’s shoulder more tightly. “I’m so sorry, Rukia. I tried…we tried to stop it, but…” The young man shook as he recalled his own impotence.

“His soul is still here.” 

All eyes turned towards Orihime for a moment. Several people suddenly realized she was standing there—the odd girl who looked like she had been raised by the wilderness (and indeed had been). 

Rukia looked at her lover with pained eyes.

“He’s still here,” Orihime said again. “The _kodama_ in the trees speak highly of him. They say he is unable to leave, but he’s good with the children among them. So they don’t mind.” 

Orihime’s gaze lingered on the trees that lined the outside of the village. Rukia looked in that direction and saw a fleeting orange and brown shadow—the vague shape of a person, but with an eyeless, mouthless face that reminded Rukia of leaves. It would have been horrifying had Rukia not felt the most peaceful, child-like aura from the yokai. _Kodama_ were kindly nature spirits, after all. They could not harm.

And yet, the whole village was staring at Orihime like she herself had the face of a _kodama._

“It’s…alright…” Rukia struggled to say as whispers dispersed throughout the village. “This girl is Orihime. She is a wonderful, trustworthy girl who saved my life. And she is responsible for helping me get this food to you!” She gestured to Orihime and then to the cart. “Yes, Orihime can see and communicate with yokai. But she is a good-hearted girl, you have to believe me—”

“A wild girl comes to the village with fiery, untamed hair,” Barragan interrupted. He walked forward, using his bone staff as a crutch. “She speaks to nature but has nothing promising to say. Ukitake-sama was a wonderful leader, but he has passed on. Peacefully. There is no reason for him to stay. If there were, then, all of our loved ones who have died here in the past few weeks would also still linger…”

“They are,” Orihime declared. “They still linger.”

People cried and gasped, clinging to one another as the thought settled. It was the worst news a grieving family could hear, after all. 

Rukia knew it was true. She could feel the unresolved spiritual energy all around her. Sode no Shirayuki confirmed as much in her mind space.

“Lies!” Barragan cried, stomping his staff on the ground. “What reason do they have to stay? To cause us more grief? Never!”

Orihime shook her head. “I…don’t know. But there is something going on here—”

“Silence.” Barragan’s one good eye burned deeply into Orihime, willing her into silence by sheer force of will. “Bite your tongue, wild girl. We do not need to listen to the ramblings of an outsider. What would you know about the grit and loyalty of _Aoi Yama_?” 

Orihime shook under the pressure. Rukia rushed up next to her. She regarded Barragan with a look of pure hatred. She had never liked this man and now she knew why. He was unreadable and completely selfish—a blank wall of complete self interest. That much became clear in a matter of moments.

However, right then, the rice began to boil and several people cried out as they realized their bellies might be full at last. At once, they divided up the rice and spooned it into waiting bowls, parents giving what they could to their children first who danced happily as they ate. 

Rukia was happy to see her village eat, especially Renji, who shoveled the food down like in the old days. But it made her stomach twist in anxiety to see that Barragan was eating none of it. He hobbled over to the pair of girls and inhaled deeply, unsettling the very air around them. As if smelling their scent. Rukia felt unnaturally exposed for some reason.

“I don’t trust you, girl,” Barragan muttered. His eye shifted towards Rukia as well. “Either of you.”

With that, he hobbled away to the village elder’s hut. To do, presumably, whatever it was he usually did.

_____________________________________________________

That night, Renji, Rukia, and Orihime sat with each other catching up on all the events that had transpired since their parting. Renji told the story of how he had barely survived the fight with Ginjo, leaving him almost mortally wounded in the process. Somehow, with his massive will and strength, Renji had managed to crawl and climb his way back to the village. It took painstaking effort and Renji admitted that he himself had no idea how he had accomplished such a thing. 

“But,” he said, gesturing to his lifeless arm. “This was the price I paid. My arm got banged up in the fight, and I took too long making my way back here. So it’s untreatable now. Useless thing.” He shoved his arm to the side in anger, wincing slightly at the pain.

“I wouldn’t say that…” Orihime said, inching towards Renji.

Pride settled inside Rukia as she realized what her lover was offering. “It’s alright, Renji,” she said immediately. “Let Orihime take a look at it.” 

Confused, Renji let Orihime spread her hands over his limp arm. “Santen Kisshun,” Orihime whispered, letting her golden barrier spring to life. Renji watched in disbelief as his arm seemed to heal itself—tendons realigning themselves, bones shifting back into place.

“This is part of Orihime’s power,” Rukia explained. “She can reverse whatever has been to done to an object. It’s what healed me back then, and it can be used in…all kinds of ways…” 

The black-haired girl blushed as she admitted that, glancing away.

“All finished!” Orihime cried, sitting back on her thighs. “Let me know if you feel any more pain.” 

Renji wiggled the fingers on his previously paralyzed hand, marveling at how they moved on his command. For once. He raised and lowered his arm experimentally, laughing in shock and amazement. Looking back at Orihime, his face glowed in appreciation.

“A miracle!” Renji cried. “I don’t know how to thank you. Or even if I should believe you…”

“What’s the harm in believing?” Orihime asked pointedly, shrugging as she spooned more rice into her mouth. “You have proof right in front of you, after all.”

Renji looked again at his healed arm. “I guess I do…”

“Now, tell me Renji, what has been going on in this village? Is Barragan…?”

Renji shook his head. “Rukia, I know this whole thing is not exactly…ideal. It’s not what any of us wanted.” The young man sighed, his newly healed hand turning into a fist. “But, the fact is, Barragan-sama is the only one who stood up to lead us after Ukitake…you know.” 

Pain shot through the both of them at that admission.

“So I’m grateful to him,” Renji continued. “We all are. If it hadn’t been for Barragan, we all would have probably suffered a lot more than we did…and let me tell you, Rukia, it was a hard for everyone. We’ve all lost someone this winter.”

“I know…” Rukia said.

Renji shrugged. “But yeah, weird stuff has been happening here. I’ll give you that.” 

“Like what?” Orihime asked, curious.

“Sounds in the night. People waking up from nightmares all the time. There’s like this energy here now…can you feel it?”

“I can feel it, Renji,” Rukia confirmed. She felt it in her very bones. 

“I don’t know why. Probably it’s all this damned death and misery we’ve got going on…”

“It looks like the work of a hollow.” Orihime threw that out as if it would mean something to the young man. 

Rukia stiffened. She knew it had been coming but it sent fear through her heart all the same.

“A what?” Renji asked.

“An _oni,_ a monster yokai,” Rukia explained. “We’ve…come up against them before.”

“You have?” Reno’s eyebrows disappeared behind his bangs as he raised them in shock. “Rukia, what exactly have you been doing out there?”

But how to explain? Rukia wanted to trust Renji with the truth, the reality of her bond with the yokai spirit who claimed her life, but…if Renji was distrustful of Orihime, with her benign power, what would he think of Rukia? She herself did not know how she would react had their positions been reversed, especially during such difficult times…

“Renji! Rukia!” A young girl from the village ran along outside their hut. “Barragan-sama has called an emergency village meeting! He…requests that you attend.”

“Sounds like an order to me…” Renji muttered. But he ambled to his feet nonetheless. Rukia and Orihime followed suit, making their way to the elder’s hut.

They should have known this might happen, but a burly looking man stopped Orihime at the door. “No outsiders,” he barked, pushing the girl back.

Renji and Rukia stepped forward to defend her, but Orihime herself took several steps back and shook her head. “It’s alright guys,” she said. “I am an outsider here. So I’ll wait back in the hut. Please, take your time, and don’t worry for my sake. I’ll be fine.”

Renji nodded and went in, but Rukia looked back at Orihime longingly. She did not want to be separated from the girl—they had not been since they started this journey—but what she was saying made sense. Feeling a tug of uncertainty, Rukia held onto Orihime’s hand surreptitiously.

“It’s alright,” Orihime said again, flashing her lover a smile. “Go on.”

Rukia wanted to kiss her then. But she knew it would be ridiculous (and perhaps dangerous) to do so in front of the villagers. So, she squeezed Orihime’s hand once and went into the elder’s home for the meeting.

Everyone had gathered, looking grimly at each other. Rukia noticed right away that there were no children to be found. Not a good sign. Children were excluded from such meetings when difficult or painful decisions needed to be made…

Barragan stared straight ahead, muttering some incomprehensible prayer under his breath. Everyone waited until he came to a stop to breathe. Then, the gnarly old man opened his mouth and began.

“I have gathered you here to explain our next course of action.” 

Silence settled. A palpable presence in the room. 

“We will be…appeasing the mountain god once more.”

No sooner were the words out of Barragan’s mouth than several people rushed to their feet in anger and dismay. They cried out all at once, blaming and cursing various things.

“Not again!”

“You promised the last time it would never need to happen again!”

“We cannot afford any more losses—”

“And who else can say they know the mountain god’s will as well as myself?” Barragan shouted. “Will we not lose more people if we decide to ignore this request out of selfishness? Our _Aoi Yama_ blood is weak as it is! We cannot afford any quibbling over merely one life…”

At that moment, Rukia knew what Barragan was planning to do. It made her shiver in disgust to know that such a thing had been going on in her village—they all thought themselves somehow above it. But, realistically, it had only ever been a matter of time.

One man spoke up in the crowd. “Ukitake-sama spoiled us,” he said. “He held us back by not doing this before now. Barragan-sama is merely showing us the reality of the world. We have no choice.”

“Choice?” A crying woman spoke up again. “What choice will it be next? I have already lost my daughter to this madness!”

“Enough!” Renji cried, getting to his feet. He clenched his fists at his sides in determination. “We cannot argue like this! Barragan-sama, you’re the leader here. Tell us what we must do.”

Barragan nodded impassively. “We appease. The god wants another young life to slate his hunger.”

Human sacrifice. Rukia reached out to Sode no Shirayuki as she felt the heavy weight of this (fairly common) practice bear down upon her and the rest of the villagers. How could she be party to something like this? Not after having met Orihime, who would scorn any loss of life as a tragedy. Orihime would find another way, a way that did not require death—a way to entreat the mountain god.

“Another young girl?” the same man from earlier asked, his eyes glazed over.

Barragan nodded. “Yes. Not a child. A young woman.”

“Is…is there no other way?” Renji asked, shaking, as he regarded the crying parents of several young girls in the room.

This time, Barragan’s eye turned sharp—like a hidden dagger exposed suddenly to go in for the kill. “Renji-kun,” he asked. “Your hand seems to have miraculously been cured.”

The color drained from Renji’s face as he realized he would have to explain this phenomenon. 

“A miracle?”

“But how?”

“Was his injury a farce? Or are the gods taking pity on us at last?”

Renji shook his head. “It feels better today, is all…”

Barragan nodded toward the young girl who had called them all into the meeting. “Tell us,” he said to her. “What did you see?”

“That girl,” she said, right on cue. “The one with the fiery hair. She…there was this light coming from her hands. She held it over Renji-kun’s arm—and then Renji-kun was fixed. Just like that!"

More murmurs followed. Barragan looked positively triumphant, and Rukia felt an impending sense of dread.

“Yokai magic,” Barragan said easily. “It is the only explanation. This girl Rukia has brought to us is nothing more than an _obake_ sent to steal our souls! She spreads poisonous words, gifts of food and magical cures—nothing genuine in the lot!”

“No, you don’t understand—“ Renji tried to interject, but it was hopeless.

“I say,” Barragan continued. “We drive her out. Rukia as well. Send both of these girls to be sacrificed to the mountain god. Rukia is young and untouched, very pleasing to a god. And that _obake_ will turn tail and run at the first sign of imminent danger. A sure fix to our situation.”

Already people were starting to mutter in agreement over the finer points of that logic.

Rukia bit her tongue in anger. “You’re…going along with this? After everything I went to trying to bring back nourishment, after everything I went through in my youth. Half of you raised me! Am I not part of this village too?”

“If you were part of this village,” a man said. “You would not question sacrificing yourself to save us all.”

A harsh bite of ruthless logic. Rukia knew in her heart that she had no chance of arguing her case against these people. They wanted to sacrifice her, driven mad by misfortune and hunger, the stench of death like the calling of vultures waiting to descend upon them all. It would be difficult to make any case for Orihime, and now Rukia herself had come to a realization. 

The only way for this to stop was to stop the hollow. Getting close to the mountain god could get her there. It was a hateful, uncertain plan at best, but…it stopped anyone else from being pointlessly sacrificed.

“Fine.” Rukia rose to her feet, staring Barragan dead in the eye.

“Rukia, what are you doing—” Renji tried.

“I’ll go. And Orihime will come with me. But,” Rukia took a deep breath. “If I return, then you will know all of this to be false.”

With that, she turned on her heels and went to find Orihime. If this was to be her fate, she would fight like hell—as she was beginning to realize was the only path for her in this life. Fighting, scraping…and of course, loving. She would face this terrible thing with her love at her side.

_____________________________________________________________

It was a mixture of shame, helplessness, and despondency that stopped anyone in the village from protesting when Orihime and Rukia went to face the mountain god the next day. Barragan led the way, of course, but the rest of the villagers stood by to watch. Children clung to their mothers, even as some people chewed on their leftover rice from the day before (rice give to them by Rukia, after all). They watched her with solemn eyes as she and Orihime went to what was, ostensibly, their deaths.

In some ways, Rukia could not blame them. They were mortally afraid. She had been so many times in the past. This mortal fear was what had driven her to run from Renji back then, when she knew her friend might die in the fight. Mortal fear was her worst enemy, Rukia knew. And winter—the very bane of her people—was her strength.

_“Call on me at the first sign of danger,”_ Sode no Shirayuki beckoned. _“This could be much worse than I feared, Rukia-sama.”_

“I know,” Rukia said back in her mind scape. “But this is the only way.”

_“You have become quite the warrior, my love.”_

“Only with you at my side.”

_“No, it’s not to do with me. You have become something even I could not foresee.”_

Those words struck a strange chord in Rukia. Foresee? That implied that Sode no Shirayuki had imagined all of this. Surely that meant her yokai companion had some hidden plans, a machination in the works…

_“Let me explain.”_ Sode no Shirayuki took a breath and showed Rukia a familiar scene—the avalanche where her parents died. _“I am a kodama, Rukia. A snow sprite who thrived during winter and hid in the clouds the rest of the time. I was part of the snow fall that killed your parents. You understand me? I was the snow in that avalanche.”_

Rukia swallowed hard, all the grief twisting inside her as she remembered that moment. Her parents swallowed by snow, reaching outward, the snow piling up wider and wider, creating distance until eventually they were gone…

_“I didn’t mean to,”_ Sode no Shirayuki continued. _“I was new to life on earth and had only existed for a few days. When I saw your face as your parents fell into my snow, your anguish…it struck me. It gave me consciousness. You, Rukia, your face and your beautiful pain gave me life. You made me this woman, this form. After that, I decided I would stay with you until I no longer could. I protected you, sometimes. Mostly, I just hung by and watched you grow.”_

Rukia stared at Sode and Shirayuki and realized that the aura from this woman felt like the same aura from that snow, the same pure but nevertheless deadly whimsicalness. She had known this woman all her life—ever since that fateful day.

_“And now, Rukia, I have never been more proud of my decision.”_

Rukia felt tears prick her eyes. She loved this creature—she knew that they had been bonded together by fate. It was fate that killed her parents, but the same fate had given her this wonderful yokai. She could not bring herself to feel any other way.

“Thank you, Sode no Shirayuki.”

“Rukia?” 

Opening her eyes, Rukia saw Orihime staring at her with a worried expression.

“I’m fine,” Rukia assured her. “Let’s keep going.” 

Barragan led them through the twisting, winding upwards paths of the mountain in silence. He did not turn back to make sure they were following him. He seemed to know they were simply by virtue of his own strange presence. All the while, the old man continued muttering some strange prayer. Every once and while Rukia thought she could hear excerpts that made sense, but really she had ceased caring about this man.

He was, ultimately, a coward. Rukia would fight instead, she would fight against the hard-earned fear that permeated this gritty man and made him submit to such a bizarre yearning as human sacrifice.

Orihime held Rukia’s hand tightly. She was not afraid. She was instead…dumbfounded and extremely grateful at the way Rukia had defended her at each turn. Never before was she satisfied to have found someone as brave hearted as Rukia. 

Tsubaki hovered near her ear. “This whole plan is stupid,” the fairy muttered. “What if we all get killed?”

“Aw, Tsubaki-chan sounds scared!” Lily called teasingly.

“Scared? Please,” Tsubaki growled in his throat. “Let’s see what this mountain god as to offer. I mean, if you have to go around calling yourself a god, you probably won’t amount to shit…”

Barragan came to a stop in front of a large boulder. Rukia felt spiritual pressure emanating from the boulder—a yokai’s presence was nearby. A powerful one. Furthermore, a hollow. Naturally.

The old man shuffled into a kowtow position, raising and lowering his head against the ground over and over. They stood for several long moments. It felt like hours—but of course, it probably was no more than minutes. Rukia felt nothing but icy resolve, and a kind of restlessness to see all of this get started at last.

Eventually, the light around them faded. Rukia could not be sure if it was natural or the work of the yokai, but she hardly cared. Instead, her veins sparked to life as she felt a stirring all around her. The boulder itself seemed to shift—not move, exactly, but shift—as if phasing in and out of regular reality for a moment. The rock would look to be normal, then it would turn into a shadow of itself, twisted and bright in the darkening atmosphere. Rukia blinked once, then one more time, and suddenly the boulder had disappeared.

In its place was the terrifying figure of a large turtle, mixed with the head of a tiger. Flames lapped around its eyes, creeping up from the shadows its body cast on the unnaturally dark ground.

“Yama-dono,” Barragan spoke at last. “Keeper and protector of this mountain. I have brought you more gifts to slate your hunger in the hope that you might leave the rest of us in peace.”

“Peace…?” The mighty god rumbled. “No peace on these mountains. Vigilance only. Steady vigilance.”

“Yes, Yama-dono. Please, take these two girls and do with them as you will.”

The turtle turned its beast-like head and regarded Orihime and Rukia. It felt like both of them were being roasted under the sheer hear of that gaze. It took effort just to remain standing. 

“You?” the yokai groaned. “You two yokai underlings? Are you even partly human?”

“Yes, we are human, oh might Yama—” Orihime began.

“Silence!!” The mountain god seemed to be having none of it. Anger and fire flashed across his face. “I will hear nothing you have to say. Are you the ones responsible for poisoning my mountain, turning it a measly pile of rock? Uninhabitable where once it was a paradise…?”

“Yes, Yama-dono, they are,” Barragan asserted.

“Then!” The tiger part of the yokai roared, shooting ribbons of dark energy through them all. “Die. Everything in the universe turn to ash, Ryuujin Jaka!” 

As soon as the words were spoke, an inferno of flame began to build from the ground up. There was dark energy in and around those flames. Rukia and Orihime felt like they were choking, the heat burning them deeply, down to their hearts—penetrating them in a way they had not anticipated. If they did not move, they would all be burnt up—

“Shiten Koushun!” Orihime put up her strongest barriers on instinct, blocking some heat from the flame while Rukia could summon her blade.

“Dance, Sode no Shirayuki.” A wave of cold air crept outward from Rukia’s downward spinning blade, stilling the onslaught of heat for a moment.

Yama roared in outrage as he felt their resistance. For his part, Barragan crept away from the fighting and made his way back to the village, muttering his strange self preservation prayer along the way. After all, it had helped him so far.

Orihime felt her fairies moaning at the intense heat from Ryuujin Jaka. They had never faced something like this before. As Yama poured more energy into his flames onslaught, Orihime felt like her barrier might soon break, without any hope of holding on—

“Rukia…” she cried. “It’s too much…”

Rukia was spinning and sending needles of ice at Yama from all directions. She tried her first dance and her second dance, only to watch her ice melt as it vaguely tried to approach the unthinkable heat that was the mountain god. She cried in frustration, feeling Orihime’s desperation at her side.

Yama stared at them with ancient eyes, full of rage. Hate, even. But not at them. A nameless anger, a frustration borne from the hate of being charged with this impossible task of protecting the mountain.

Rukia knew she could not win against him.

“Help me,” she said in her mind. “Help me, please. I know what we need to do—”

Suddenly, Rukia found herself in her souls cape again—the endless snowy fields where Sode no Shirayuki dwelled. Sure enough, the woman was staring at her, holding a mirror in her hands. Her blue eyes shone in wonder and excitement.

_“Do you really know, Rukia? Do you know what we can do, together?”_

Sode no Shirayuki gestured toward the mirror and the image appeared. Rukia saw herself, fused perfectly with her yokai spirit as she had seen upon first coming to this place. The flawless union, the pinnacle of their power.

“I know,” Rukia confirmed. She stepped toward the mirror and reached out with her hand. One touch on the watery glass and Rukia felt Sode no Shirayuki enter her—deeply, all the way to her core.

All of Sode no Shirayuki’s power rushed through Rukia in that moment. It was a shining, beautiful moment—like an orgasm, but better, because Rukia was able to say that she was no longer living alone in her body. Instead, Sode no Shirayuki had blended itself to her soul, each second of fusion sending tendrils of pleasure to every part of her. Of them. 

“ _Hakka no Togame._ Censure of the white haze.”

Rukia released her ultimate power, altering her form until she stood as one complete ice princess. White hair, white eyebrows, in a pale blue _furisode_. White ribbons like butterfly wings spread outward from her back, and she held her sword downwards in her hands. The entire patch of earth underneath her turned into a sheen of ice. 

As Rukia’s power settled, the air turned from hot to cold in a matter of moments. Everything seemed to go quiet, still as the cold itself. The flurry of movement and flames died down to nothing. Ryuujin Jaka’s inferno crept backwards, farther and farther, as Rukia took a step forward.

Orihime looked on her lover in amazement. Love and arousal bombarded her until she felt heavy wetness pooling between her legs. This was Rukia and Sode no Shirayuki combined—their final form. So beautiful.

The flames of Ryuujin Jaka died down to embers as Rukia approached Yama. She held out the tip of her sword, not even swinging it, and the embers were snuffed out in the sheer absolutely zero temperature emanating from her form.

“Enough,” Rukia said, sounding like Sode no Shirayuki then. “Calm yourself. You are not a god of hate, nor rage. You are a god of protection. But you have lost your way.”

Yama’s eyes widened, his form shrinking as he faced Rukia’s unbearable cold. Now he and Rukia were at eye level. His tiger’s face seemed to phase in and out of reality again, intermixing with the strong snout of a tortoise.

Orihime dragged herself forward, very aroused but afraid to go any closer to Rukia. She was not sure how much the other girl could control this form.

“Yama-jii!” Orihime called. “You love the people and all the creatures who live on your mountain! Their deaths over the years have worn you down, made you bitter and clouded. Your heart has become fiery, but that is not how you once were! Remember your true form!”

“Mmmmmm…” the mountain god crooned. “I want my mountain to be strong, to be healthy! Why does this winter never cease, more people die each year! Why?!” 

Flames threatened to rise again, Rukia silenced them with a swish of her blade.

“It’s not your fault,” Orihime said. “It’s not your fault, Yama-jii. You are an admirable god. Your love for your mountain is your strongest quality.”

“My love…?” The turtle shrank again, now coming up to Rukia’s waist. “Yes…my love for the mountain…”

“Purify him, Rukia!” Orihime cried.

Not needing to be told twice, Rukia turned her blade upside down and struck Yama on the forehead as she had done the other hollow. In a rush, dark energy fled the god like water rushing from a broken dam, until all that was left stood a golden laced tortoise with a small forest budding on the back of its mighty shell. In the mass exodus of dark energy, the mountain seemed to bloom a bit more, out of season as it was. The soil rumbled with vitality. 

It felt like a revolution. A rebirth.

Rukia felt Sode no Shirayuki’s power becoming unstable, she started to let go of her focus, trying to return to normal. A visceral pain like the worst kind of frostbite ripped through her. She cried out in agony.

“Easy,” Yama murmured. He approached her slowly, reaching out with a tendril of warmth. In this way, he helped Rukia start to thaw. “You must release this form slowly,” he advised. “Because this power of yours is too great for you to control right now. So be gentle, let your frost begin to warm.” 

Rukia breathed heavily and followed his instructions. Inch by inch, her skin began to return to normal. Her hair darkened from white to black, her clothes going back to their original form. 

But she was happy. She had done it—achieved perfect unity with the woman. And as for Yama…

“You have my thanks,” the proud mountain god said, bowing his head in an extreme gesture of gratitude. “My sorrow and frustration at the deaths of my people made me lose my way. I suppose it was me who helped poison this land.” He sighed. “So shameful. But I am…indebted to you both for opening my eyes.”

“Now the mountain can go back to being healthy,” Orihime said happily, rushing to Rukia’s side and wrapping the bear fur coat around her. Rukia welcomed the warmth, still unable to speak. “You can go back to protecting the mountain like you once did. I’m sure you will go on to save many lives here, Yama-jii.” 

The tortoise nodded. “Here. As thanks.” 

A mysterious looking marble appeared in Orihime’s hand. She did not know what it was for, but she bowed deeply in thanks all the same. 

“Plant this in the earth near your village. You will have a good harvest next year.” 

Saying nothing else, the tortoise turned slowly and ambled off into the distance. Regal in bearing, but magical in his own right.

_____________________________________________________________

Orihime helped Rukia walk back to the village. She gushed all her feelings to Rukia about _Hokka no Togame,_ how she had never seen anything so splendid.

“I am so proud of you, Rukia! You’ve embraced everything about yourself! And it’s…well it’s…” Orihime did not want to say how she had been so thoroughly aroused by the sight.

Rukia leaned over and kissed her lover. “Orihime,” she said slowly. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Rukia.”

_________________________________________________________

It took them days to get back to the village. That was how long it took Rukia to fully thaw. In the meantime, Orihime and Rukia kept themselves occupied by testing Rukia’s boundaries in a…different way. A way that had Orihime climaxing nonstop for most of those days. The way Rukia’s cold flesh caressed her, the way her frosted fingers felt inside of her…it was all too much for Orihime to handle. She would have been happy with even more time alone with her love. 

But they knew they had to return to give the villagers the gift from the mountain god. And after that….well…

Renji was the first one to spot their arrival. He ran to them with eyes wide in disbelief, once again unsure if he could trust a hope. Yet again, Rukia and Orihime were able to convince him that they were in fact alive. They also explained everything that had happened with the mountain god—in definite earshot of the villagers. Everyone was amazed, wary, and uncomfortable with the whole affair. But it was impossible to deny that things had changed for the better since they had entreated with the mountain god. The temperature was not quite so frigid, and no one had died since.

“Have you…saved us?” one woman asked.

“…Continue praying to Yama-jii,” Orihime said eventually. “He needs to be reminded of your devotion sometimes.”

The villagers assured her they would continue to do so.

However, one mother made her way to Barragan and began screaming at him and beating him with fists. She said he had been responsible for the unnecessary death of her daughter. (Which was, perhaps true, but unavoidable at the time.) So, the village turned into an uproar again. It took Renji to calm them all down.

“Wait!” Renji called, pulling the mother away from Barragan. “We could not have done anything else! We…had no way of knowing…” But still, he turned to Barragan in disgust. “Barragan-sama,” he said slowly, eyes burning in hatred. “Just go.”

And so, Barragan took his leave of the village. In silence. 

Rukia and Orihime waited out the rest of the winter in Aoi Yama village. They were tolerated, if heavily distrusted by most of the people. Still, spring came early that year and they were able to pass the time without extreme discomfort. When the first blooms appeared on the trees, Rukia and Orihime decided to take their leave.

“But where will you go?” Renji asked, perhaps the only one sorry to see them go. 

“We have so much to see,” Orihime explained. “I’m sure the world is wider than this.”

“Besides,” Rukia said. “There may be more opportunities for us to help people if we continue traveling. Who can say where we belong, but we know what we have to do.”

“That’s right!” Orihime smiled until her eyes closed. “Helping and traveling! That’s the way for us!”

Renji nodded solemnly. “But come back sometimes, you know? I might…miss you guys…”

Rukia promised she would. Then, she slipped the mountain god’s gift into Renji’s hand. “Here,” she said. She explained what it was for. Then she added, “For when you are ready to be a leader.”

After all, these days, most of the villagers looked to Renji to help them make all their decisions. He was the most sensible one. It seemed the position had chosen him, instead of the other way around.

Orihime always vowed to hate goodbyes. She hated this one no less. But, she was also filled with excitement for whatever journeys lay ahead of her and Rukia.

______________________________________________________________

“This is the rest of our lives!” Shun’o exclaimed. “Such a happy ending, princess!”

_“I admit even I could not be happier,”_ Sode no Shirayuki added.

Rukia and Orihime looked out into the dawn, an early spring sun rising promisingly in the distance. They held hands tightly, recognizing all the yokai surrounding them. All the yokai that they might meet in the future hung like a promise in front of their faces—as did all the people they would meet. 

A world they could call their own. Or at least, lives they could claim for themselves. Together.

“Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Censure of the white haze is the most badass bankai. I'M JUST SAYING BUT Y'ALL KNOW I'M RIGHT!!
> 
> Thanks for reading guys! Have fun with all your yuri adventuring!


End file.
